Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s battle royale mode, Blackout, will be entering a free trial period for one week beginning tomorrow across all available platforms, Activision and Treyarch revealed.
The battle royale genre is perhaps starting to lose some momentum, with several franchises trying to capitalise on the hype of the newest popular multiplayer mode. Regardless, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 tried something a bit different last year, going all in with its online game modes, particularly featuring Blackout, their own spin on battle royale.
Call of Duty’s take on the mode has been critically praised, and of course Call of Duty always sells well with each new iteration, but it’s still worth noting that Blackout was only available as part of the full game, which was sold at full price on launch. A bit steep when players have been playing Fortnite for free for over a year, or even PUBG at half that price.
Recently, they split off the game mode for individual digital purchase for PC players. While this option hasn’t come to console yet (puzzling but whatever), this free trial period could be just what is needed to inject some new life into Blackout, now that it’s been available for a couple of months.
The trial is said to include characters, locations, weapons and gear from the paid base battle royale mode. I can’t help but wonder if this is maybe a way for Activision to test out how the game is received in a free-to-play sense, as that model (with purchasable skins, battle passes and emotes) has proven to be pretty successful with other games.
If they were to make Blackout free-to-play, that would definitely increase the amount of people playing it and with its high production values and brand recognition, could give Epic Games a run for their money. But then how would that impact gamers who have already invested money in the base game and other game modes? It’s hard to say.
Regardless, the official trial period for Blackout runs from January 17 – January 24 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Where we dropping, crew?
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
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Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
