CoD: Black Ops 4 ‘Blackout’ Mode Will Feature “Deployment Zone” Practice Area as Pre-Game Lobby
As with nearly every other battle royale, the ‘Blackout’ mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will feature a practice area before each match.
This deployment area will be where players who have queued up for a match will wait for the lobby to fill up before the main match starts.
The area will be full of weapons, equipment, and other in-game items that players will have the chance to test out and practice with while they wait.
Treyarch Co-Studio Head Dan Bunting and Studio Design Director David Vonderhaar previewed this deployment area in a special Blackout Private Beta stream on September 7.
“You actually wingsuit into the staging area at the beginning [just the last bits of it] so you get the experience of wingsuiting in, but it’s just for fun. That area is waiting, trying to fill up the game.
“Transport copter […] You’re flying over, and you decide where to drop. And then wingsuiting, it’s a pretty simple experience. In general, we have it set up and tuned right now where you can mostly point towards where you want to go. You can’t make it exactly across the whole map, but you can get pretty far.”
As mentioned in the clip above, players will be dropped into the staging area from the sky, giving them a chance to try out and test gliding with their new wingsuits that they will be equipped with at the start of matches.
Once the lobby does reach full capacity, which is currently set at 80 players, the players will be escorted via choppers to the map and will get to land at the spot of their choosing.
Players can try out the Blackout mode early as the Private Beta goes live on the Playstation 4 on September 10, and on the Xbox One and PC on September 14, with it ending for all platforms on September 17.
For everything you should know about Blackout, visit our information hub here.