The coolest catch since 2007

Call of Duty has been a safe bet for Activision for 11 years.

It is popular, it sells by boat, and it changes very little from one year to the next. It prints money, basically. But Black Ops 4, published on October 12, contradicts this common thought. It's always safe – there's a royal freaking battle mode! – but this is not the call of duty that many of us know.

Remember in 2007. It's the year when Call of Duty went from the movie shooter to the first person of the Second World War – like so many other popular shooter games to the Time – to whoever changes the game.

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare was the first in the series to introduce a current battleground. He delivered narrative innovations. It has changed the landscape of online games with its magically sticky player leveling and unlocking system of weapons and equipment. And this established a framework on which Activision would stick for the next decade.

After that, Call of Duty has become an annual release and each new product usually appears as an iterative extension of the latest version rather than as a new product that needs to be considered on its own terms. This is a safe approach for a series that never seems to leave the charts of bestsellers.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is a monumental change for a series that rarely changes.

If it is not broken, do not fix it, right?

Not this time. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is a monumental change for a series that rarely changes. This is not another Modern war moment for Activision – this new game is more disciple than leader – but, in the typical manner of Call of Duty, it excels in its achievements. This one just takes a chance to do things differently.

Before publication, the most visible change was the abandoned campaign mode. Rumor has it that the withdrawal of the campaign was a mid-development decision – people were building it, there just was not enough time to finish – but developer Treyarch publicly stated that his decision was motivated by the desire to better understand the social game of Call of Duty. .

Whatever the truth, there is no story mode in Black Ops 4. The closest we get is the "specialist HQ", which is by far the weakest component of this new call of duty. The game's main menu even recognizes it, giving the HQ Specialist button a fraction of the screen space occupied by the other three game modes.

Image: Treyarch / mashable screen capture

But what is it exactly? Black Ops 4The more traditional multiplayer mode offers 10 "specialized" characters to choose from. You can equip them with the weapons of your choice, but the specialist you choose dictates the type of grenade and "super" ability you use in combat. The specialist HQ, meanwhile, includes 10 distinct tutorial modes – one for each – that are apparently sewn together by a global story.

You reconstruct this story by following the tutorial of each specialist, but it is not worth it. Each of the 10 follows virtually the same path: a highly-directed and highly-constrained T-capital tutorial, followed by a fake online match in which you fight alongside and against bots (computer-controlled soldiers). Better to learn these specialists in the lights of the online game.

This brings us to Black Ops 4The traditional multiplayer mode. That's good! If you've ever liked the multiplayer mode of Call of Duty, you'll probably still enjoy it here. Exactly.

A series of older game cards have been remastered and advanced. If you are a long-time fan, there is really nothing more exciting than running around a Black Ops 1 card as firing range again. You know every corner, every hiding place, every way of approach. You play with all these new toys, but on old, familiar and beloved grounds.

Treyarch also simplifies unlocking by locking different rifles, equipment and benefits (passive upgrades that change the behavior of your soldier) against the level requirements. This is another sign of the head for Modern war, where leveling up meant everything for your Create-a-Class shipments.

You can always create your own loads in Black Ops 4 – The feature unlocks early – and personalize them with the help of point-based system that was more common in recent Call of Duty games. But overall, the new multiplayer version of the year seems to be an approach of the type Greatest Hits. It works.

The zombies are back too. Treyarch originally introduced Zombies cooperative survival mode as an Easter egg at Studio 2008 Modern war to follow, Call of Duty World War. Since then, Zombies has grown and evolved, adding many ideas that have made the game's competitive aspect so popular.

In Black Ops 4Zombies is better than ever. The base is largely the same: fight alongside a maximum of three other players to try to survive with limited resources by as many waves as possible before the zombies, always more powerful, do not end up submerging.

This time we have a choice among many maps: one on board a version of the Titanic on a ghost ship and another in a mixed pantheon arena incorporating mythological elements from ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Vikings. There is also another remastered map, located in Alcatraz prison.

Everyone has their own story and puzzles to solve, as always. The big changes for zombies are felt more when you start playing. There are new ways to get in shape early in a game and some rules have been changed to keep players in combat longer.

A major example: if you die during a wave but at least one member of your team moves on to the next, you keep all the weapons you have picked up. In previous games, dying and resurrecting in the next wave of zombies meant starting over with a basic, rotten pistol. This is a minor rule change with monumental consequences; survive a wave, and everyone is always equipped to keep fighting.

In Black Ops 4Zombies is better than ever.

You can also fill your team with extremely useful bots when you do not have a full team of four people. The friendly robots of the zombies are very good at the game; they come back with a clutch recovery and help reduce the number of zombies. Do not be surprised if you finish a match and see your bot (s) at the top of the rankings – it happened every time.

Other new items enhance older ideas. You can equip elixirs that will give you improvements for a limited time. the most common can be reused forever (once the cooldown has elapsed), but the rarest elixirs (obtained from packages purchased with money earned in the game) are limited by the number you have collected.

The specialized component of the multiplayer mode even plays a role in Zombies now. Before the start of a match, you can select the super weapon you want to carry with you. There are four in the beginning and each one behaves (that is, kills zombies) in different ways. Just like specialist skills, your Zombies Super Weapon is run by a cooldown.

In addition to all this, each card has more. In "IX", the mixed pantheon arena, you can do all the things you expect from zombies, like following the Easter egg, assemble makeshift equipment and upgrade weapons to the machine Pack-A -Punch. But there are also challenges that confer more immediate benefits, such as a self-healing object or an already improved gun.

There is even a tutorial mode for Zombies. Long-time fans will not learn much by playing on it, but the tutorial introduces the basics of a Call of Duty element that has always been a little unapproachable (at the beginning) and to learn from it. 39; use. It is long overdue and contributes greatly to give the zombies a sensation more and more cooked.

The highlight of Black Ops 4 although – by far – is Blackout. This is the very popular royal battle mode of Call of Duty on the mega popularity of games like The battlefields of PlayerUnknown and Fortnite.

PUBG especially is a good touchstone here. Blackout has a lot in common with the Fortnite Progenitor, although based on the Call of Duty Foundation, he instantly feels more refined and effective as a shooter.

I really can not underestimate that PUBG Comparison. Blackout seems to give more and better weapons faster, but items such as marking destinations on maps, counting bullet drops and staying in the ever-narrower circle are immediately known. Fortnite shares these elements, but the game's construction mechanics distinguish it.

That's the polish that wins here. Blackout feels effortless. This slips directly into the Call of Duty framework as if it had always been there. PUBG is still a great game, and he is still largely responsible for promoting a widespread interest in the royal battle genre, but he suffers from any comparison with Blackout. The take of Call of Duty is simply better.

In general, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is a winner. It capitalizes on everything that the series achieves while disrupting the 11 year old formula. It does not look like a different game, but that Is to feel like a whole new. And for Call of Duty, a series that opts for iteration rather than innovation, it's a huge step forward.

UPDATE October 15, 2018 An earlier version of this story incorrectly noted that Firing Range was a map of Call of Duty: Modern war. It's actually the first call of Duty Black Ops.