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Domination is still a lot of fun, and a mode where you can have a real impact even if you’re not the best shot, just by sneaking into an enemy point and nabbing it. The guns are ugly as sin, since every player seems to have coated them in obnoxious glowing skins, but the feel of them – and the sound design, indicating your hits – has never stopped being satisfying. As much as I miss some of the more sci-fi elements from Black Ops 3 – 4 is pointedly a more ‘boots on ground’ experience, without any wall-running or anything like that – I enjoy the new healing system, and the way character-specific powers are such a big focus. When I actually get into a match, the game is tremendous fun still. I found nothing in ‘Barebones Team Deathmatch’ across two attempts, and when I jumped into zombies mode only one player joined in to help me fight through a zombie-infested Titanic (which was, by the way, my favourite zombie map I’ve ever played in any of these games – I usually don’t take to them).
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This might be why so many of the playlists now take much longer to get matches in. When you’re in the menus, Black Ops 4 feels desperate.
#Call of duty black ops 4 pc review full#
If you release a game at full price without a campaign, and get regular Call of Duty sale numbers – and Black Ops 4 has sold very well indeed – but it’s still not enough, then something is going very wrong with your business model. Everything feels geared towards me spending more of my money on the game. The rotating list of playlists is small, and each one reminds me that I’d have a better time if I bought more maps. The menus are a mess of microtransactions, stores, notifications about Twitch Prime bonuses, links to purchase Modern Warfare, and reminders that your options are limited because you haven’t bought this year’s very expensive season pass. There’s little indication across the Black Ops 4 experience that you’re playing a game that you paid full price for. Truthfully, I had a great time playing it again – the Call of Duty gameplay loop is still the satisfying little endorphin rush it’s (almost) always been. I returned to Black Ops 4 this week for the first time this year – on PS4, without a season pass - expecting it to feel stale. The newly added Black Market, which is the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass, would cost you over $1800 if you wanted everything in it. The mood inside Black Ops 4’s Reddit is bleak, focusing on how expensive everything is, and a general sense that Treyarch has abandoned the game. That’s not all that happened – the game also aggressively embraced transactions, micro or otherwise. Then, of course, Apex Legends came along, with its shorter matches, tighter map, its ping system, its varied characters with their unique characters, and the shooter expertise that Respawn brings to the table. It married the longer-form, tense experience of a PUBG match with Call of Duty’s snappier combat, and it went over well. The Blackout map felt fresh in its enormity, and the way it felt like several distinct multiplayer maps merged together, complete with vehicles and the RNG grind that battle royale players loved.
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Instead, we got a game focused entirely on multiplayer modes, and at launch people loved it. While the explosion of PUBG and Fortnite made the inclusion of this mode a near-inevitability, I’ve always had a soft spot for CoD campaigns, and after Black Ops 3’s fun, legitimately bonkers adventure (which was an unhinged mess that I appreciated for how weird it allowed itself to be), I was keen to see where else Treyarch could take things. I was always iffy on Call of Duty dropping its campaign in favour of a battle royale mode. Nine months after release, Black Ops 4 is still an enjoyable game, moment by moment – but it’s also a game that lacks a firm sense of identity and place.