Firebreak character in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
Firebreak character in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — how and why Treyarch changed multiplayer combat

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 10 min

Game publisher Activision and its development studio Treyarch unveiled Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 on Thursday at an event at an aircraft hangar in Los Angeles. The leaders described the changes they made, including why there are no sci-fi features like thrust jumps and wall running.

They also explained why there’s more emphasis on teamwork and fewer grenades in the game. Considering the Black Ops franchise has about 200 million fans out there, these decisions will see endless debate until everyone gets a chance to try them when the game debuts on October 12.

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Written by

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.