Call of Duty's League Play

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s League Play is gaining traction

Esports is getting more popular than ever, and that’s ringing true with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4‘s online multiplayer play. Game studio Treyarch has revealed that League Play, a new ranked competitive mode introduced in February, is more popular than any previous competitive modes in a Call of Duty game.

In fact, as the chart below shows, the number of hours put into League Play is second only to the number of hours in Black Ops 4’s most popular mode, Team Deathmatch. That’s important, as esports is getting more important and more competitive when it comes to shooter games.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.