GameInformer interviews Treyarch in their newest podcast episode, many questions answered

Keshav Bhat

GameInformer’s coverage of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 comes to an end with a 40 minute podcast featuring Treyarch answering fan submitted questions about Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

Here’s a summary of what Vahn answered during the interview:

  • Vahn thoughts on the Blackout Beta: “Blown away by the reception. I felt confident, I felt good. The reception was better than I expected.”
  • Vahn’s reaction to Dr. Disrespect: “He’s an interesting dude, for sure. He has a lot of fans in the building here.”
  • They have not yet decided the final player count for Blackout at launch. 100 players held up pretty well, but they are doing work to optimize. Player count can change post launch until they feel safe with it. Vahn wants it at 115 “for the fun of the lore” during special events.
  • Blackout will be more optimized for the regular PS4.
  • Blackout Post Launch: “There has always been a pretty aggressive plan.” They are still working on the plans for it. Events, planning, and all still ongoing. Beta’s response re-enforces that they are on right track.
  • Yes, more character skins will be added to the game.
  • There are more weapons in the game at launch than beta. Any new weapons that they make for MP will “end up in Blackout for sure”
  • Studio’s Reaction on Armor: “Hotly debated” about what to with Armor. There are looking at additional damage mitigations…”hold the armor all the way through..you don’t have to break the armor all the way to eliminate somebody.” They want to figure out the end game scenario to see how Armor effects that. They are NOT prepared to get rid of Level 3 Armor from Blackout. “It’s the wrong call.”
  • There’s a lot of work on audio going on. In final game, the player can actually speak…players have to initiate it. It’s a feature in MP and Blackout. There has been a lot of work on footsteps, audio priority, and more. Lots of audio bugs fixed.
  • Treyarch debated auto-picking up of ammo. But auto made it that ammo was not taking it seriously. People would not take ammo seriously if auto-pick up was enabled. So they want ammo to matter.
  • There are no changes to muzzle flashes in Blackout planned. What was in beta is almost final.
  • Vahn says he has a whole agenda of how he wants custom games and custom game settings to work in Blackout, but no new info yet.
  • Friendly Fire will be enabled still.
  • Vahn has a “host of team configurations” he wants to try out.
  • No split-screen yet in Blackout as of now. They are testing it, and they are not sure yet if it will work.
  • There is no inventory management being worked on right now, but they have great ideas on how to improve. They are focusing on ship right now.
  • They do not how to let inventory be up while you run on consoles. It’s “technically” possible, but they are sorting it all out and trying to learn how to improve it.
  • They have plans to expand Kill Cams to add more details to it, but no set date for that yet. They are trying to get basic of kill cams to operate correctly first.
  • There are a lot of spectating features coming to Blackout. One feature that’s coming at launch that was not in beta. Vahn says players who are spectating could have more information than the players to make ‘spectating fun.’
  • There will be no ‘ranked’ Blackout matches.
  • There could be ‘crazy tournament’ stuff for Blackout, but they don’t want Ranked matches in Blackout like MP.
  • They want to see if grapple to a vehicle could happen, but nothing finalized yet.
  • Vahn says he will ask about being able to ‘hover’ in a helicopter above and shot when playing in solos.
  • Vahn: “I cannot announce the plans for the future of the map. I can tell you that there are plans for the future of the map. I went through them in detail 2 days ago and they’re sick, and I can’t wait.” GameInformer says Vahn mentioned during their visit “there’s a lot of open ocean out there” and Vahn quickly shushes him….
  • Vahn has seen over 175 concepts for events/event internally based things for Blackout to keep the mode new and unique. “There is no shortage of ideas here.”
  • Blackout Circle closing on Zombies location is “an idea for one of the special events”
  • Collapse of Circle has many features to come: they want to adjust the tick rate and more ideas they are working on. Circle speed should adaptive to player counts too.
  • Blackout leveling up system is different. There are 80 levels total in Blackout. You have to get kills and get top 5 and top 10 in order to level up. You cannot prestige. End of 80, there is a “grand daddy of the prizes” and prizes “along the way.”
  • There are changes coming to Merit system at launch. They needed more data from the beta in order to tune it.
  • Vahn says he ‘hopes’ to implement custom games to Blackout. He cannot confirm or deny it, but there is a vision for implementing it into the game.
  • There is colorblind settings in MP, but they are working on to implement into Blackout.
  • Text Chat should be disable-able in Blackout.
  • No details on microtransaction yet for the mode.
  • There are “many things” related to Easter Eggs that have not been found in Blackout
  • Vahn says he won’t be a playable character in Blackout
  • Vahn says “maaybbbeeee” to bonus game modes
  • No mod tool announcement
  • “There are fans of the TranZit Bus in the buildings”

You can watch the full video and interview here:

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About The Author

Keshav Bhat is the Co-Founder of CharlieIntel.com, the world's largest Call of Duty news site. Based in Atlanta, Keshav also serves as the Head of Social Media for Dexerto network, running a network of over 10 million social followers. Keshav can be contacted for tips at [email protected]