Five ways to improve Blackout post-launch
Blackout has taken the Call of Duty community by storm since Black Ops 4 dropped on October 12, but there are still some ways Treyarch can improve the game mode.
The success of Blackout has been one of the driving forces of the popularity of Black Ops 4 in the days since launch, with any popular streamers such as Dr Disrespect and Shroud, dedicating all of their time to the game.
The game has been so popular, in fact, that it catapulted to the top of Twitch with almost 30 million hours watched between October 11 and 17.
If that wasn’t good enough, Black Ops 4 also generated a whopping $500 million in revenue during its first three days on the market alone.
Despite the incredible amounts of success the game has seen, there is still plenty of work to be done in order to keep the hype train going, especially as far as Blackout is concerned.
We’ve put together five of the biggest areas we’d love to see Treyarch make some changes to now that we’ve had our hands on the game for a week.
1. Tweak the effectiveness of 9-Bangs
This piece of equipment has quickly become the go-to for Blackout players everywhere as they’ve proven to be incredibly effective no matter the situation.
Tossing one of these towards an enemy or group of enemies pretty much guarantees the user a kill just due to how long the victim is stunned. Not only does it blind them completely, but it makes it so that they can’t even fire their weapon regularly.
While 9-Bangs doesn’t need to be removed from the game altogether, shortening the time and intensity of the stun would be a good place to start with tweaking the utility item.
2. Better inventory management on console
Managing your inventory when playing Blackout on console is almost as hard as winning a match at this point. While the system is streamlined on PC with an effective grid system for looting, looting and cycling through equipment, heals, and attachments is cumbersome on console.
In a game like Blackout where death is a constant worry, being able to quickly manage your items is imperative to success. Treyarch has already talked about changes to the Quick Menu system on console, but they can take a step further by bringing in the grid system from console to make the looting process less of a headache.
3. Improve footstep audio
Being able to hear what direction footsteps are coming from in a battle royale game is one of the many keys to victory and Blackout is no different.
Right now, though, the audio of footsteps tends to be a bit inconsistent, leading to plenty of frustration. There’s nothing worse than hearing footsteps and not knowing whether it’s coming from above, beside, or behind you, leading to your untimely death. Making sure that audio is on point in Blackout should be near the top of the list for Treyarch moving forward.
4. Create a more dynamic victory screen
While securing a win in Blackout should be a joyous occasion, the victory screen is pretty lackluster at the moment. Landing that final kill simply freezes the screen before a generic “#1 Victory” screen pops up with a classic military quote.
Including the killcam or adding in more dynamic graphics to make that final screen more satisfactory will go a long way to making this mode feel as complete as possible.
5. Patch out movement glitches
There’s currently a glitch that allows players to traverse the map much quicker while playing Blackout. Former Overwatch League pro and Twitch streamer Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel was seemingly one of the first to discover the glitch and it gained tremendous traction in the days since his discovery.
It looks like the glitch, which involves rebinding the jump key to allow players the ability to manually deploy the wingsuit, can only be done on PC, but that hasn’t stopped many utilizing the glitch to gain an upper hand on their opponents.
Treyarch has remained adamant that stopping players from gaining unfair advantages is a high priority for them, so fixes for this exploit could be on the way sooner rather than later.
