'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Emote Peeking Solution Revealed by Treyarch

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduced an emote system that allows players to peek around corners, a problem that Treyarch says it is aware of and looking to fix.

Just before the game launched on Friday, a video surfaced that showed a player using a wheel full of emotes and sprays within the game's multiplayer component. The systems were ones that some players disagreed with anyway by saying that the features watered down the traditional Call of Duty experience, but the "peeking" element of the emotes was one area most players could agree on. By using one of the game's emotes in a competitive mode, players can temporarily change their view to a third-person perspective and move the camera around, thus allowing them to look around corners and see things they wouldn't normally be able to see.

via Gfycat

With issues about the emote system being raised before the game was even fully available worldwide, those complaints continuing after the game launched, Treyarch has acknowledged the problems and gave insight into how it plans on fixing the problem.

"We're aware that players have been able to use Gestures (often referred to by the community as 'Emotes') to peek around corners in modes where that can create an unfair advantage," Treyarch said in a post on Reddit. "We're currently working on an update that creates two systems for Gestures – the default system that is in the game now, and a competitive version that disables free look and applies different camera settings to prevent using it to see around corners. The default system will be used in parts of the game where corner peeking won't affect gameplay balance (like the staging area of Blackout), and the competitive version will be used in modes where a more restrictive camera system is needed. We want players to always have fun with Gestures as intended, but never at the expense of fair gameplay!"

The use of the word "modes" would normally apply to different ultiplayer game modes like Domination, Search & Destroy, and more, but here it seems to apply to the broader competitive gameplay modes like multiplayer and Blackout, so the update should target those specifically. It's unclear how Black Ops 4's "Gestures" will be implemented in the multiplayer mode though seeing how it doesn't have the same sort of staging area that Blackout does, but they at least appear to be getting the same restricted camera angle.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is now available for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.