How does the next Black Ops multiplayer hold up?
Over the weekend, I was playing the Private Beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 on PS4. Despite having mixed feelings about the game and its lack of campaign in favour of a full-on multiplayer experience, I dived in to see if the gamble has paid off…
Being a beta, you obviously expect several issues and while I found that there were problems with long load times, balancing issues and just general hiccups, I was overly impressed with how polished it was for a beta. I know that most of these issues are already being looked at and hopefully the second weekend of the beta for PS4 users and the first for Xbox One users will be improved overall.
Maps were nicely varied and highly detailed, running at a solid framerate as you would expect from the series. Gone is the nonsense from Black Ops 3, making Black Ops 4 a more refined and high-octane experience. The character classes are a real mixture, and each has their own merit, the good news is that there will be something for everyone and finding the class that works best for you and your team is paramount to success.
The beta had classic modes like Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed and so on. There will be a separate beta for the Blackout mode in September, Blackout is the COD equivalent of the ever-popular Battle Royale genre like PUBG and Fortnite. It’ll be interesting to see if COD can add a new twist to the Battle Royale genre, but until then we’ll have to wait.
The Verdict
On the whole, I was impressed with the Black Ops 4 Beta. It had some issues, but overall was well polished for a beta. It may lack a campaign, but Black Ops 4 is shaping up to be a real contender for the shooter genre.