Seraph.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — why Treyarch chose a different path

Rob Kostich manages the Call of Duty franchise at Activision Publishing. And this year, that means he is overseeing Treyarch, the studio that is making this year’s multiplayer-only Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

I’m not a big fan of the decision to ditch the single-player campaign in this year’s title, but I sat down with Kostich yesterday to get Activision’s perspective on the evolving franchise. He said that the team is making decisions and taking risks based on what will be fun for fans and the larger community.

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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.