Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 'Blackout' Team Reveals Upcoming Changes

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 'Blackout' beta brought many interested fans into the game to check [...]

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 'Blackout' beta brought many interested fans into the game to check out Treyarch's take on the massively popular Battle Royale genre. This beta is doing as all betas should - it's testing out the game in order to perfect how it operates and change anything that's not wanted.

To prepare for the next wave of improvements, Treyarch took to the Reddit boards to discuss some of the upcoming changes coming to the Battle Royale mode. We briefly talked about their Teamkilling strategy, but what about other key changes that players have had complaints about?

Here's what Treyarch had to say:

"Our player count on PS4 will remain at a max of 88 players per match today. On Xbox One and PC, we're starting with a max of 80 players per match just like we did with PS4 at the start of the Beta, and we'll be testing different player counts so that we can optimize to be ready for launch on October 12th.

Of course, a new day brings a new slate of updates to the game, including increased damage taken inside the collapsed area of the map, tweaks to Supply Drops, and updated Wingsuit mechanics."

  • Audio Occlusion (AKA: Spatial Audio): We discovered and are fixing a critical bug where a player's environment does not properly impact in-game sounds. This is why, for example, someone directly above or below the player can sound so much louder than expected. When the game is released, footsteps will be properly impacted by walls, floors, ceilings, and other objects in the world.
  • Distinguishing Vehicle vs. Player Hits: We've seen requests to make it easier to determine if a player's shots are hitting a vehicle or an enemy in or near that vehicle. This is already being fixed in time for launch. Players will know the difference based on the color of their hitmarkers.
  • Armor Damage Indicator: Several players have asked for a clearer method of showing how much damage their Armor has taken. In the launch version of the game, players will see an Armor Health Bar that appears above their own Health Bar in the HUD when wearing Armor. The Armor icon will continue to break apart as it does now.
  • Camera Controls While Downed: We've seen requests to allow free-looking camera controls when downed. We intentionally don't allow this, as players should not have better situational awareness when downed than when they're on their feet. Nonetheless, we will continue to evaluate the camera position and other tweaks.
  • Scoreboard/Teammate Kill Counters: In the long term, we are working on some improvements to the After Action Report that will give players additional information about their team's performance. We also have planned improvements for seeing performance stats in the game that will measure player Kills, Downs, Kills Confirmed, and Clean Ups, which will be separate from the "Players Left Alive" and "Players Spectating You" HUD details.
  • Draws/#1 Place, but Game Over Instead of Victory Screen: Some of you have been surprised to see your match end in a draw. Same here! It's very possible, but unlikely, that two players could trade kills, and we need to do a better job covering this edge case and others like it. Stay tuned.
  • Killcam Details: In Blackout, players cannot access the Killcam until everyone on their team has been eliminated from the game. This is to prevent players from using the replay to give advanced situational knowledge to teammates still alive. After all members in a team have been eliminated, the Killcam button will appear on the Game Over screen.

To check out what's already been altered in the beta, you can check out our previous coverage here. As for when the game releases, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 drops on October 12th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC players.

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