How Call of Duty’s Blackout battle royale is faring amid greater competition

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
April 12, 2019
Updated June 20, 2025
15 min

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 made a big splash when it debuted last fall. It had the first Call of Duty battle royale map with Blackout, and it had a much larger Zombies experience as well. But battle royale is more competitive than ever, and Call of Duty must contend with competitors like Apex Legends, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Fortnite, and Battlefield V.

That’s why Activision’s Treyarch studio is focusing a lot more attention on updates and live operations, such as the addition of the Alcatraz battle royale map, which concentrates a lot of players in a single map. It includes innovations like the ability to respawn five times and dispenses with a plane drop.

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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.