'Call of Duty' Blackout Is Making Crawl Speed Faster When Downed

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout battle royale mode will let players crawl faster when they're downed compared to what was seen in the beta, Treyarch said.

Being downed and needing a teammate's help isn't something that's been seen in Call of Duty's multiplayer component of its games, though Zombies players will have some familiarity with the mechanic. But in battle royale games, it's a staple mechanic in the team-based modes that gives teammates a chance to pick up their fallen comrades. Revive times and crawl speeds differ between games, but Treyarch has decided to increase the crawl speed in Black Ops 4 for Blackout's full launch with that decision being based on another change.

After reporting that Treyarch intended to change the revive speed in Blackout, the article made it to Reddit where players weighed in with their opinions on the change that would allegedly double the time it took to revive someone. While one player said that they disagreed with the change and said the revive time needed to be faster instead, a discussion led to Treyarch senior game designer Matt "MaTtKs" Scronce clarifying some claims by giving exact details on how the revive speed will be changed. He said that it previously took 3 seconds to revive teammates while the full Blackout release will make it so that it takes 5 seconds to revive someone as opposed to 10 seconds like one comment suggested.

Elaborating on the decision, Scronce revealed that the longer revive time would be accompanied by faster crawl speed. This means that while it'll take teammates longer to revive their companions, the downed players can get to cover quicker or crawl to their teammates while the allies provide covering fire. He added that this will also make the Medic perk more valuable, one of the perks that's found in Blackout that seemed to take a backseat to other options during the beta.

"We've also slightly increased downed crawl speed," he explained. "With a faster crawl which allows you to reach cover quicker, we felt a slightly longer revive time was needed. An increased revive time also encourages the use of the Medic perk, which reduces revive time by 50% among other things. That said, we enjoy the gameplay around revive times at a quicker pace compared to the genre standard."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and its multiplayer, Zombies, and Blackout battle royale mode is scheduled to release on October 12th.