We know that Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will have a battle royale mode called “Blackout,” but it seems like the developer still doesn’t know how many players it’s going to support.
“No, we’re not saying how many players,” Treyarch studio director David Vonderhaar told Kotaku. “We’re working on trying to figure out what the exact right magic number is for a battle royale game in the Black Ops universe… I’ll tell you what. If you look at the video that we showed, and you play it back, I think you’ll find your answer. You’ll possibly find your answer if you do some sleuthing. Maybe.”
When Kotaku asked Activision to elaborate, they send the following statement (and attributed it to Dan Bunting, Treyarch’s co-studio head):
“Yesterday, we revealed Blackout, a massive new battle royale experience coming in Black Ops 4 at launch, October 12. Blackout delivers an experience that’s uniquely Black Ops featuring characters, weapons and gear from across the series on the biggest map ever in the franchise — over 1,500 times greater than Nuketown and a player count that is an order of magnitude above anything previously in Call of Duty. We’re deep in development and actively playtesting to optimize the gameplay to deliver a final player count that gives fans what they expect from a Black Ops experience, and we look forward to sharing more with the community soon.”
And Bunting was just as vague in his Eurogamer interview when asked about battle royale player count:
“It’s still a game in active development. We’re always fine tuning the appropriate amount of players for any experience, and this is no different. We’re still fine tuning the details. Our approach on this is, it’s not really about player count, because at the end of the day it’s about whatever that experience is designed to be optimised for and to have the most fun in. Our goal is not to strive to hit the highest player count. Our goal is to deliver the best, most Black Ops experience we possibly can.”
It looks like Treyarch is still in the process of determining how many players the game can handle without putting a damper on its performance.