Is Black Ops 4 Worth It? What You Need to Know

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 breaks the traditional mold to offer a new experience for players, but is it the change up the annual franchise needed?

The decision to not include a single player campaign in Black Ops 4 surely garnered a lot of attention when it was clearly absent from the reveal. Let’s start by saying that if you are a die-hard Call of Duty single-player fan, that yes, missing the campaign is going to be a huge blow. If that’s all you play the Call of Duty games, for Black Ops 4 might not be worth it.

However, if that’s not you, and you just liked the campaign in addition to the game’s other features, or didn’t play it at all, I feel pretty confident in saying that you won’t miss the campaign that much.

Black Ops 4 has so much else to offer in zombies, multiplayer, and the battle royale mode Blackout. These three modes offer a well rounded experience for players that all give the game a personality and tone that set it apart from previous installments.

Sure, many people will look at the $60 price tag and be turned away from a “just multiplayer” game, but there is still a strong value in Black Ops 4 that justifies it.

Blackout easily stands out from rivals like PUBG or Fortnite because at its core it is still an extremely polished Call of Duty shooter. The controls are tight and responsive, it’s visually impressive, and the addition of land, sea, and air vehicles help prove there is a space for it. It’s easy to point at Blackout, and scoff at another battle royale game, but it is so distinctly Call of Duty that it’s hard to believe it never existed before this game.

Fans of the Zombies mode will be happy with three maps at launch and the formula of cryptic hints and easter eggs to uncover remains untouched. Explore the RMS Titanic on the Voyage of Despair map, fight your way through a Roman like coliseum in XI, and revisit the classic Black Ops 2 zombie map Mob of the Dead currently renamed Blood of the Dead. This is by far the most Zombies content offered to players at launch.

Multiplayer in Call of Duty has gone through many different iterations over the years, but the changes in Black Ops 4 seem the most set on altering the formula going forward. There is no flying, wall running, or crazy parkour to be had in this game, but a list of subtle changes that alter the way you interact with Call of Duty. Specialists play a much larger role in Black Ops 4 by giving players a set of abilities and equipment exclusive to them.

This is a step closer towards hero shooters without feeling like a carbon copy. Specialists change up how you think about situations, how you approach map choke points, and most importantly what equipment you bring into battle. It’s a welcomed change and one that I believe pays off big time for them.

Think of it this way. Black Ops 4 evolved to being an offering similar to Overwatch, a deep multiplayer experience that most fans will tell you has been worth the $60. While it might not have the long term support that Overwatch is enjoying, it is launching with three extremely well-developed and distinct game modes that are able to appeal to so many different types of gamers.

While Black Ops 4 will have DLC, it has rarely felt mandatory unlike some other multiplayer games. It’s just there if you want it.

So in short, unless you only play Call of Duty for the single-player campaign, Black Ops 4 is indeed, worth it.