Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has an answer to PUBG and Fortnite, and it’s out in open beta right now on all platforms – players can jump in to “Blackout,” run around a huge map, and search for an elusive victory before being eliminated by some ridiculous sniper kill. From initial impressions around the internet (and our own personal experience), the mode is extremely fun – it may be just the shot in the arm Call of Duty needs to regain some footing in the world of esports.
One major problem stands in the way: team-killing and griefing. Black Ops 4, like many CoD games before it (and, let’s face it, many online multiplayer titles in general), features an army of irritating players who will gladly shoot their teammates in the back “for the lulz.” However, Black Ops 4‘s Blackout Mode offers even more reason to do this – if you shoot and kill a teammate, you can loot their corpse. Therefore, if a teammate grabs a gun that someone else wants, those players will shoot them dead to claim it for themselves.
Treyarch has heard the fan outcry over this detail. In a Reddit post about issues the team will address, Treyarch claims that one of their central priorities in Black Ops 4 is to stop team-killing. They claim the final release will have a “zero tolerance” policy for team-killing, and encourage players to report teammates who participate in this behavior in order to ban them.
The post also addresses other concerns that Treyarch plans to address before Black Ops 4 releases in full, including better audio cues, an armor health bar, and a few other improvements that fans have been calling for.
Black Ops 4 is scheduled to release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 12, 2018. For the first time ever, it will not have a cinematic single-player story, so its Blackout Mode needs to pick up the slack. It seems like it is more than up to the task, especially if Treyarch is taking fan feedback into account.