‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’ Update Improves the Black Market

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s latest update has already improved the Reserve Cases item as it changed how players progress through the Black Market system.

A previous update made it so that Blackjack’s Reserve Cases (loot boxes) were more accessible at the front-end of the Contraband tier system, but Treyarch said it “had an unintended effect on players who progressed through the first 100 Tiers.” The community was quick to vocalize its dissatisfaction with that change, and Treyarch responded in turn by adding these Reserve Cases to end tiers of the Contraband system to give high-level players a way to keep earning.

“Effective immediately, Reserve Cases have been added back to the Tiers at the end of the Contraband stream, and players will continue to earn progress toward Cases for gameplay time while progressing through the stream,” Treyarch’s notes about the change explained. “Daily Tier Skips after 100 Tiers also now work as before, granting a Case for each Tier for players of all modes to ensure the original goal of allowing players to earn Reserves earlier and with more frequency than in previous Operations.”

In another critical change, Treyarch said the earn rate for Reserve Cases has now been doubled which means players will earn those loot boxes twice as fast. For anyone who may have already advanced beyond the highest tiers of the Contraband system, they’ll get the Reserve Crates they should’ve earned because of the new changes retroactively.

“Lastly, if you’ve already progressed beyond Tier 100 during this Operation, you will automatically be awarded with the same number of Reserve Cases that you would have earned for every Tier completed since that point in this Operation,” Treyarch said. “This means no lost Tier-based progress toward Reserves, as your Cases earned after Tier 100 should be waiting for you once you’ve applied this evening’s update.”

Like other Black Ops 4 updates, these Black Market changes are currently only live on the PlayStation 4 version, though they’ll be in effect next week alongside the release of Operation Grand Heist on the Xbox One and PC platforms.