Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 replaces single player campaign for battle royale mode

Developer Treyarch has revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be the first in the long-existing franchise to contain no single player campaign, confirming recent rumours that have been circulating about the upcoming shooter. Instead, it’ll have a number of different multiplayer modes, including the traditional multiplayer, the now-expected zombie mode, and (because of course) a new battle royale mode called ‘blackout’. Narrative elements will be weaved into each of these modes.

Cashing in on the Fortnite and PUBG craze, ‘Blackout’ will have the largest map ever created for a Call of Duty game (apparently 1500 times bigger than the Nuketown map). Utilising characters, locations and weapons from previous Black Ops games, it’ll let players navigate the giant map with a variety of ground, air and sea vehicles.

The Blackout trailer implied that the new mode would have features that would differentiate it from existing battle royale games – “for us to even consider this kind of experience, it had to be unique and done in a way that only Black Ops can do.” Players will have to wait a bit longer to see if this statement holds true or is just more marketing hype though – the trailer itself shows no gameplay footage, nor was the mode available to play at a hands-on event after the reveal.

Trailers were also released for Black Ops 4’s more traditional multiplayer mode, as well as the 3 mini-campaigns for its Zombie mode. The latter showed some fairly strange-looking settings, including zombies invading a gladiator arena (?!) and a zombie outbreak on what appears to be the Titanic. Check out all of these below.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will be out October 12 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.