Update, September 11: Blackout’s player count just went up in the middle of its first beta.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s battle royale mode, Blackout, is now in beta, launching with a player count of 80. Ahead of release, Treyarch suggested that number is subject to change – and it already has.
After today’s hotfix, the player count has jumped from 80 to 88, giving you a few more players to contend with in each round. The patch also brings some bug fixes, faster item pick-up, a two minute timer on the sensor dart, and a slight change for the Quick Equip UI.
Details come via Treyarch’s David Vonderhaar on Twitter. This is all currently specific to the PlayStation 4 beta, and we don’t know if the changes will immediately be part of the PC Blackout beta when it launches later this week. Most likely, we’ll continue to see further tweaks to player count depending on current game balance and server load.
“What’s really more important to us than a number is that the gameplay experience is as refined as it can be, that’s it the ideal perfect format for what players are going to play,” co-studio head Dan Bunting tells Game Informer. “So we’re starting with 80 players, but we’ve gone higher than that.”
In fact, that number could rise by up to 35 players. In another interview with Game Informer, Treyarch’s studio design director, David Vonderhaar, was asked why the team was stopping at 80 players. In reponse, he asked “Why not 115?” When quizzed as to whether that would be the final figure, Vonderhaar said that “with any luck” Blackout will feature 115 players.
As Bunting says, “Whenever we launch a game as a beta or whatever, that’s the beginning of something. We’re going to actively be participating in the community and taking feedback, making changes and adapting, evolving the game as feedback rolls in. So there’s a lot that can go on that can happen beyond that first impact of the game going out there.”
Your Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 release date is scheduled for October 12, and you can follow that link for much more detail on the game.