Call of Duty battle royale beta: Surprisingly tame, surprisingly solid

Enlarge (credit: Activision)

News about the latest annual Call of Duty video game has mostly revolved around what's missing: a single-player campaign. Activision is rolling the dice this year on November's CoD: Black Ops 4 by focusing entirely on online multiplayer, and your opinion on that may range from "wtf Activision" to "I only play multiplayer, anyway."

Either way, has this shift unlocked enough major, online-specific benefits? So far, that's unclear. Two of the upcoming game's three modes-co-op "zombies" missions and traditional versus battles-look remarkably similar to what has already come from the zillions of CoD development houses under Activision's purview.

This week's pre-release CoD:BO4 beta test, on the other hand, teases a tidal change for the series: a new "Blackout" mode. As in, CoD's first shot at the 100-player battle royale genre, popularized by the likes of PUBG and Fortnite.

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