One Returning Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Feature Won't Be on PS4 and Xbox One
The PS5 and Xbox One show their age when it comes to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Call of Duty players got tons of info on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Warzone this week during the Call of Duty NEXT event, and for the most part, that info was positive and well received. Verdansk is coming back to Warzone, for example, a map which was the original battleground for Call of Duty's battle royale game and is one that players have been wanting to see again for awhile now. For Black Ops 6 players on the older consoles, however, Activision confirmed that at least one feature seen in previous Call of Duty games won't be present on the PlayStation 4 nor will it be on the Xbox One.
That feature is the theater mode, a tool used to record and watch clips captured during Call of Duty matches. Theater Mode won't be present in the beta that's starting this weekend, but if you've played past Call of Duty games, you should be familiar with it already. It was first introduced in the original Call of Duty: Black Ops and has been used in every Black Ops game since then as well as some Modern Warfare games, so it should come as no surprise that it's back for Black Ops 6. What may be surprising to PS4 and Xbox One players, however, is that they won't be able to use it.
One of several Call of Duty blog posts about Black Ops 6 confirmed that the Theater Mode won't be present on the older consoles.
"Though not available in the Beta, the Multiplayer experience of Black Ops 6 brings a fully featured Theater Mode at launch, allowing you a robust suite of viewing options, including the ability to watch, pause, slow down, speed up, and play back your previous gameplay, including the ability to take screenshots," Activision said. "Note that Theatre Mode is not available on previous-generation consoles (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One)."
As games have skipped the past-gen consoles already, it shouldn't be too surprising to see that at least one feature wouldn't make the cut on the PS4 and Xbox One. If anything, it's more surprising that Black Ops 6 is even coming to those consoles in the first place, though there both still have an install base that Call of Duty can't ignore even if that means sacrificing some features.