So today we witnessed the unveiling of Call of Duty Black Ops 4, the newest offering from the Call of Duty franchise and usually I don't consider a game dead on arrival before it's even released however this was.....this was something else entirely, so we're going to look at some of the things that made up the release of the game and the reasons behind why I think this is going to be a flop, so lets take a look at it.
No Single Player
For me, this is an instant no buy, the multiplayer for me hasn't been great since Modern Warfare 2, so taking the only reason I still play the games is pretty much a killer for me, instead they've decided to focus on two things, Multiplayer and Zombies well 3 things, but we'll get to that later, by eliminating Single Player they claim they can better focus on delivering a better multiplayer experience, the only problem is is that for the 3-5 games, Call of Duty has only been about the multiplayer experience, I don't exactly know how not giving a short 6 hour campaign like most of the recent releases is somehow going to free up more time to make some amazing multiplayer game that's completely different from every other Call of Duty from the past 5 years, only time will tell about this one but I can safely say it's going to be a very very big hit to their sales.
Multiplayer Looks Exactly The Same.
One of the biggest things that stood out at me is how bland the Multiplayer looks, in terms of differences between 2-3 and 4 nothing seems to of changed, the only real thing that seems to of changed is giving specialist classes ala Rainbow Six Siege, and that's really about it, it's sad to say there really isn't much of a change from the previous installments and will more than likely follow the same linear path of unlocking items and weapons over the course of the game, however there are some minor..."upgrades"? i guess that are very very common in nearly every other game on the market such as recoil on weapons and health regeneration being a triggered feature of the player.
Like I said, there really isn't much about the Multiplayer that seems big or new apart from a bunch of new weapons and operator skills to choose from, in a way this feels like a Rainbow Six Siege rip off while not going the full distance in terms of the tactical nature of Siege, moreso that they've borrowed parts of the game and jammed them into the clone of black ops 2, some people may like this but I feel like for a new game being released this isn't really a selling point, Iv'e never really heard anyone say "Woah check out the minor recoil changes and Fog of war! this is worth $100 for sure" it just it doesn't sell this game at all, the only people it's selling to is people who were already going to buy it to begin with, there isn't enough here for it to really be considered a new game either.
Zombies.
Zombies are back with it's same episodic release of content, personally I think Zombies are a little bit over done but I can't really fault them for this since it looks half decent, more so a continuation of the previous games story lines and game play, there's not really much to talk about here except for again, "upgrading" certain aspects of the game that are pretty much standard in other games such as mutators and custom map development as well as difficulty levels, it's hard to really review this as nothing much has really changed in almost all of the game and without a single player campaign it's probably going to be hard to sell the variety show of a game as new and fresh.
Battle Royale, Sigh.
This is just....uggh this is just terrible, Battle Royale games are the latest trend however I think someone forgot to inform them that the genre is already dying out, by adding a Battle Royale mode to Black Ops they're trying to cash in the PUBG and Fortnite crowd, there's only one problem with that, most BR players don't play Call of Duty, I know it's a bit of an over simplification but this just reeks of desperation on their part to sell as many copies as possible on a trendy market, now of course there is no game play footage of it yet however I'd like to think that a triple A studio doing a battle royale game would at least be extremely optimized and could make a bit of a splash but I mean at this point battle royale games are a dime a dozen and every second studio is trying to release one to cash in.
The Variety Show but a telling sign.
I Said above that this game looks like a variety show, taking bits and pieces from other studios and shoving them into the game without really fleshing them out too much, at the moment the most "original" thing they're doing is the battle royale mode since it will be built from the ground up but even then it's kind of a big "meh" in terms of game play, I know I personally won't buy it for the multiplayer or for zombies the only really gimmick if you will is the battle royale mode that is coming entitled "Blackout" but there is a telling sign of what's happening in the gaming industry that I think they've realized.
Consoles are dying out, I haven't really seen treyarch or activision go full fledged in PC gaming support in a decade, however they have made a completely different version for the PC that will be released exclusively on Battle Net(why I don't know) but it's a telling sign since they're putting so much effort into making the PC version viable and putting it on one of the largest and most exclusive platforms around means they're either serious about making the PC version of the game a selling point or they're hurting for sales, and given Activision has barely turned a profit on CoD games in 5 years i'm getting the hurting for sales part is true, either way this wasn't the best reveal of a game iv'e ever seen and it doesn't instinctively grab me as a game I need to get, if you love the usual cliche of Black Ops games this will be perfect for you, but a part from that I don't see anything but the Battle Royale mode really bringing many new players into the game.
Only time will tell though and we haven't seen all of the information just yet so stay tuned for more, cheers guys!