Call of Duty: Warzone’s anticipated Black Ops Royale mode is available for all players now, but I got to play it early at an event at Treyarch earlier this week.
Folks expecting Blackout 2 or a 2.0 version of the 2018 battle royale mode first introduced in Black Ops 4 might be disappointed, but after playing the new mode with other media and content creators while visiting Treyarch earlier this week, I think it’s pretty fun to play.
Black Ops Royale feels like a fast-paced spin on Warzone, which it feels as though it desperately needed, especially in recent months. The free-to-play BR mode turned six years old on March 10, and even Warzone’s game director Pete Actipis at Raven Software described the mode to us as “stagnant.”
“Goal number one was shaking up battle royale,” he said of how Black Ops Royale came to be, and the timing of it. “It was good timing with [Black Ops 7], working with Treyarch. We see the trends in gaming, let’s add more strategy and depth and slow down the experience a little bit in a way that works for Warzone.” And by slowing it down in the looting phase of a match, that meant speeding up the movement mechanics as well beyond that initial opening period.
Make no mistake: this is still very much so Warzone with some Black Ops flair. But this new mode is about “shattering” that existing stagnation and “embracing the Black Ops and Blackout experience from the ground up,” Actipis said. And it begins and ends with two distinct differentiations: traversal and looting, and both feel very different from the base Warzone experience.
Warzone with speed
Movement and traversal in Black Ops Royale is quicker and more fluid, adding Black Ops 7’s wall jump, along with the Wingsuit from the Endgame mode on the Avalon map, which is exclusive to Black Ops Royale for now but will come to the regular BR modes in Warzone eventually. The addition of the Blackout-like Grappling Hook as a tactical item is also crucial for this, allowing players to zip up to high ground to push enemies or to simply trigger a Wingsuit flight to quickly rotate around the map. You can also redeploy your Wingsuit from any form of high ground, too, and the distance you can travel while gliding is immense.
This is crucial because Avalon is a big map with a lot of wide open spaces, so movement needs to feel as good as it does in Black Ops Royale. It’s going to be hard to return to normal battle royale after this new mode, because the movement and traversal just feel way better and more natural on a bigger map, especially when it comes to moving from objective to objective and fight to fight, aiming for better gear and higher kill counts.
Looting is totally different in Black Ops Royale as Warzone’s signature Loadouts are gone, replaced with ground loot that you can upgrade on the fly. This is a big plus for gamers returning to Warzone after a long time who no longer have to worry about ranking up or unlocking the best new “meta” gun. The loop of Black Ops Royale’s looting focuses on finding ground loot gear to quickly fight with as opposed to grinding missions to earn cash so you can buy a Loadout Drop, so the chase for better gear is an evolving process throughout a match as opposed to just finding a crate of weapons and items that you built in the lobby.
Gear is color-coded in Black Ops Royale, and base grey-tier weaponry can be found everywhere. These weapons can then be upgraded by finding Attachment Kits around the map as ground loot or as rewards for completing a variety of activities. These are a necessity because base grey weapons are not great, offering super low bullet velocity and no attachments. Upgrading a weapon (grey > green > blue > purple > orange) by quickly picking up a kit will add an attachment each time while also increasing bullet velocity and other stats, which is huge because bullet drop is immense.
Armor is color-coded, too, which creates some interesting, if frustrating, encounters. The difference between levels one, two, and three on your armor plates is huge. The highest tier armor mitigates 50 percent of damage to your armor plates, so it feels like a necessity when it comes down to winning those endgame fights as the circle closes in. It takes a lot of bullets to fully chunk through a Level 3 armor, and I would not be surprised to see it eventually nerfed.
Perks are also consumables in Black Ops Royale, and they’re one-time usage items that last for a short duration. They can be stowed in your backpack for a certain time in a match, or picked up and used immediately, and this functionality is similar to how it was done in Blackout, too.
Periodic public events called Cradle Breaches are a great chance to get better gear around the map, but very dangerous and difficult to survive if you’re not prepared. A few times throughout the match, this event will begin and spawn a gas circle where you can fight for loot within while also dealing with waves of zombies and other players who want the loot, too.
Cradle Breach battles are fun, but hectic. Zombies are constantly spawning, and you either have to deal with a Mangler boss fight or kill 10 zombies at a time to activate a Mystery Box to earn potentially game-changing loot. It’s definitely worth doing as a match progresses, but it’s always going to be a risk, especially when dealing with both PvE and PvP battles.
There are a lot of other different activities to do around Avalon, but they’re not marked anywhere on the map. You will be notified when you’re near an activity, but they must be sought out with exploration, and their locations are randomized in every game. Marking a contract on a map is not a thing here, so if you want better gear, you need to move around and seek out objectives to earn it. But they are all a part of improving your chances of survival and victory, and thus worth pursuing if you’re ready to fight over it.
Black Ops Royale is available now in Quads only, which is a controversial decision to many. The addition of Solos, and even Duos and Trios, will likely come sometime soon, thanks to there already being an outcry about it before the mode even launched. It was brought up several times at the event, as well. But for launch, Quads is the only mode available because Raven Software wants to “filter everyone in for the best matchmaking.”
I have no idea if Black Ops Royale will bring Warzone players back in droves like how the devs and publisher are hoping, especially considering how high the competition is in multiplayer shooters, let alone live-service ones these days. But I do think Black Ops Royale is a big improvement on regular Warzone, so I’m glad that it will be sticking around for the foreseeable future.
