Treyarch announced today that it is extending the beta for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4‘s Blackout mode on all platforms to noon Pacific today. The studio is also increasing the player count for the mode to 100. Black Ops 4 comes out on October 12 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Blackout is Call of Duty’s first take on a battle royale mode, which has a large group of players drop into a large map and fight to be the last person standing. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite have popularized battle royale, and now the kind of shooters is capitalizing. Blackout could shake up the market and make Call of Duty even more popular. Call of Duty is already routinely the top-selling game in the U.S. each year.
Blackout is not just a clone of PUBG or Fortnite. Most battle royales are in third-person, but Blackout is a first-person affair. Its map includes locations based on past Treyarch Call of Duty games. Blackout has top-end, realistic graphics, while PUBG is still working on perfecting its performance and Fortnite embraces a more cartoon-like look.
Treyarch has slowly increased the maximum number of players for Blackout since the beta started. At first, 80 players fought it out. That number went up to 88 midway through the beta, and now the studio is experimenting with 100-player matches.
