Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will feature a Fortnite-style battle royale mode

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will feature a Fortnite-style battle royale mode

After announcing the game back in March, today, Activision has finally provided a glimpse at the next Call of Duty. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (unfortunately styled “IIII”) will ditch the series’s traditional single-player campaign, and instead focus on multiplayer. (There will still be narrative elements, but they will be weaved into the multiplayer modes.)

That multiplayer focus will include the now-standard “zombies” mode, as well as a brand-new addition: “blackout,” a Black Ops take on PUBG and Fortnite-style battle royale. The mode will pull characters and locations from previous games in the subseries, take place in what Activision describes as the biggest map ever featured in a Call of Duty game, and include ground, air, and sea vehicles.

Meanwhile, here’s a look at the more traditional multiplayer mode:

According to an Activision source, the multiplayer focus of Black Ops 4 doesn’t indicate a shift for the series as a whole. Instead, it’s a change specific to this year’s game, indicating that future Call of Duty titles will return to the bombastic cinematic single-player modes players are used to. To make up for the absence of a traditional campaign, Black Ops 4 will feature three different “zombies” experiences when it launches. That includes a brand-new storyline separate from past games, and what appears to be elements pulled from Gladiatorand Titanic... for some reason. Here’s a look at two of the zombie experiences:

In another series first, the PC version of Black Ops 4 will follow in the footsteps of Destiny 2and utilize Blizzard’s Battle.net online infrastructure. (Blizzard is also owned by Activision.)

The game is being developed by Treyarch, which released Black Ops 3 in 2015, and it follows last year’s throwback Call of Duty: WWII. Call of Duty isn’t the only big-name game getting unveiled in the weeks leading up to E3, which kicks off next month in Los Angeles. Earlier this week, Bethesda officially announced Rage 2, and on May 23rd, EA will provide the first look at Battlefield V, with an event hosted by The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah. Square Enix, meanwhile, has been steadily dripping details about the next Tomb Raider, which launches in September.

Black Ops 4 is launching on the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 12th.