Since the announced of
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's battle royale mode, Blackout, Activision and Treyarch have been drip-feeding us details. This week, we learned the new battle royale mode will
feature AI-controlled zombies and
support 80 players at max (at least for now). Today, Treyarch officially unveiled the map in which those 80 players will duke it out to become the last squad standing.
The official
Call of Duty Twitter account posted a detailed image of the Blackout map, which is said to feature the largest map in franchise history. Asking fans, "Where are you dropping first," the map features a total of 13 named locations. They are seemingly all based on maps featured in other
Call of Duty games. It's unclear if each of these locations will be the complete map seen in previous games, or if they are simply inspired by them. Treyarch previously stated the Blackout map would be around 1,500 times the size of the classic map Nuketown, but size comparisons to other battle royale games like
Fortnite and
PUBG are still unclear. It's worth mentioning that you can see specific buildings highlighted in yellow, suggesting the map may not be as large as other battle royale games. Still, you have to figure it'll be large enough to support land, sea, and air vehicles, which Treyarch has already confirmed will be present in the mode.
Of course,
Fortnite or
PUBG may not be the best comparison to Blackout since those games actually specialize in battle royale, while Blackout is just a separate mode in
Black Ops 4. Perhaps a more fitting comparison would be
Battlefield 5 's battle royale mode, Firestorm. DICE has kept a tight lid on their take on the battle royale genre, but a trailer yesterday revealed
the mode will support a total of 64 players (16 teams of four) on the
"largest Battlefield map ever."
Call of Duty fans will get their first hands-on experience with Blackout when the private beta goes live for PS4 on September 10. Xbox One and PC gamers will have to wait until September 14 for the Blackout beta, which r
uns until September 17 on all platforms.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 releases on October 12 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.