'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Blackout Player Count Revealed
The number of players one game of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout battle royale mode can [...]
The number of players one game of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout battle royale mode can accommodate has been revealed, with the mode able to host 80 players at once.
Game Informer reported on the maximum player count that's often been discussed after the battle royale mode was announced, a series first for Call of Duty. Speaking to Treyarch's co-studio head Dan Bunting and studio design director David Vonderhaar during a trip to Treyarch's offices, Game Informer was told by the pair that each Blackout game is currently planned to support 80 players during the beta.
It's a difference of 20 players, as compared to other battle royale games like Fortnite and Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, with those two and other games of the same genre usually sticking to 100 players per game. Blackout will support more players than Battlefield V's battle royale mode, though, with that newly-named mode, "Firestorm," revealed on Tuesday to support 64 players at once. Speaking to Game Informer, Bunting did say that the Blackout mode was initially tested with 100 players, but Treyarch wanted to stick to a number that maintained the quality of the game mode instead of compromising it for a number. The number could change though, but 80 is what Treyarch is starting with in the beta.
"What's really more important to us than a number is that the gameplay experience is as refined as it can be, that's it the ideal perfect format for what players are going to play," Bunting said. "So we're starting with 80 players, but we've gone higher than that. Whenever we launch a game as a beta or whatever, that's the beginning of something. We're going to actively be participating in the community and taking feedback, making changes and adapting, evolving the game as feedback rolls in. So there's a lot that can go on that can happen beyond that first impact of the game going out there."
Considering how other games have set a precedent for having 100 players in a battle royale mode as opposed to any other number — except for some outliers who want to shoot for many more — it'll be interesting to see how beta testers react to the Blackout mode and the player number that it supports. It's most likely that people will side with Treyarch and hope for a number that doesn't sacrifice quality though, be that number 80 or one that's higher or lower.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 releases on Oct. 12th, but the beta testing for the Blackout mode begins for PlayStation 4 owners first on Sept. 10 before releasing for everyone else on Sept. 14.
