'Call of Duty' Blackout's Level System Goes to 80, Has No Prestige

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout mode does have a leveling system that goes up to 80, but players can't Prestige once they reach the max level.

As some Blackout players who frequented the beta may have noticed, a leveling system was already in place during the pre-release test. Starting everyone out at the base level, players might've noticed their level go up as they played Blackout matches, but there was no level-up fanfare or much attention drawn to the feature.

In an interview with Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar, Game Informer relayed a community member's question about Blackout's leveling system and asked if it would work similarly to what players have seen in Call of Duty's multiplayer modes or if players would level up differently. Vonderhaar said that there is indeed a leveling system, but it's not quite what players are used to.

"No, it's definitely different," Vonderhaar told Game Informer when asked if the Blackout leveling system was similar to or different from what's seen in multiplayer. "Right now, there's 80 levels in the Blackout leveling system. It is a performance-based leveling system. Like I mentioned, in order to level up, you have to get kills, you have to get to the top five or 10 or whatever. You will simply not level up if you're not doing good. That's very different than most traditional leveling systems."

Vonderhaar went on to say that there's no way to Prestige once players hit the max level, a common practice in Call of Duty's multiplayer mode that allows players to rest their level and do the grind all over again with some rewards for the Prestige that increase the higher bases on how many times players have reset their levels. He said that once players hit level 80 in Blackout though, they'll get "sort of the granddaddy of prizes" and on the way to that level "there's prizes along the way with characters."

"It's not exactly like multiplayer where you go through 55 levels, get content, and then reset, and then reset, and then reset," he said. "The Prestige is sort of the high-end echelon level which would be 81 where we give it a name. So there is a finality to the progression."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and its Blackout, multiplayer, and Zombies mode are scheduled to launch for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on Oct. 12.