The Blacks Ops 4 announcement raised some serious controversy this week when Treyarch announced the game would not have a single-player campaign – a first for the Call of Duty series. Instead, the studio is adding a Battle Royale mode, cashing in on the popularity of PUBG and Fortnite.
Is this a well-thought out and considered change to the Call of Duty formula, or an opportunistic attempt to get in on the flavour of the month? Treyarch insists its the former.
“We never had set out to make a traditional campaign. We always started from the place of we’re going to make something different with this game that was going to be inspired by how our community was interacting with Black Ops 3 and the games over the years,” says studio co-head Dan Bunting.
“We see more and more players spending more time with multiplayer and zombies, not just in the game, but out of the game, streaming and talking about it in forums. It’s generated a really huge crowd response. The decision was, we wanted to make a different style of game this time.
“There was never a traditional campaign. We’ve always wanted to tell stories in different ways. We’ve always wanted to celebrate our community, especially how you play the game with friends. The heart and soul of this game is how you play games with friends and we wanted to do more with that than we’ve ever done before.”
Predictably, fans of the series are threatening to boycott the game over this move. Bunting responds, “trust us”.
“I think change is always going to be hard for people. I would say to our fans, Treyarch has never let you down over the years. This is a studio you know is always going to deliver the best of the experiences you know and love, especially with the Black Ops series. We are delivering so much more of what players spend most of their time doing in our games in the series.”
For all the info on what to expect from BLOPS 4, head over here.
Personally, I like it, and think everyone needs to stop their bitching. Call of Duty has been consistently criticised for sticking to the same rehashed formula year in and year out. I’m not saying tacking on a BR mode is particularly original, but it’s cool to see the franchise take a risk for once, and actually be willing to mix things up. There’s always next year.
Source: Eurogamer