COD Black Ops 4 beta impressions

Over this past weekend the world got its first taste of Call of Duty Black Ops 4, the first ever Multiplayer only Call of Duty game and its safe to say it's going in the right direction.

While most gamers would feel familiar around modes like search and destroy, deathmatch and hardpoint; a new more tactical mode called Heist is what’s caught everyone’s attention. The highly talked about Battle Royale Mode was not available to play at this time, but will be playable later in September when the Open Beta returns.

The biggest change to the tried and tested Call of Duty gameplay is the removal of Auto Regeneration of HP, something COD players will probably take a little getting used to. Now Regen must be manually triggered with a button and goes through a small animation, forcing players to make quick decisions whether to heal or stay in the fight a little bit longer. Getting used to the new routine of fight, duck, heal repeat takes a bit of time but is a welcome change.

One returning feature for Call of Duty Black Ops 4 is Specialists. COD versions of class based characters with their own unique abilities that encourages more teamplay amongst players. Each class comes with a specific ‘Unique’ ability and an ‘Ultimate’. The good part is the balance between abilities and gunplay, something I feel Destiny 2 didn’t manage quite well but here while the abilities give instant kill satisfaction it doesn’t completely trample over standard gunplay.

Overall, the Call of Duty Black Ops 4 beta left a positive impression for most gamers and the transition to Battle.net has been quite smooth. The beta is set to return next month and is expected to give gamers access to more content and the hotly anticipated Battle Royale mode.