Black Ops 4 Blackout Challenges

Unlike the Fortnite Battle Pass Challenges that get added to and updated with each week, the Black Ops 4 Blackout Challenges is a static list that’s split into two main categories – Career and Operations – which are then split into two sub-categories – Professional and Survivalist, Heroics and Vehicular respectively. The majority of these challenges have multiple tiers to unlock, and will require you to achieve certain goals multiple times, just to make sure you’re constantly kept busy.  

Here are all the Black Ops 4 Blackout Challenges, including the nine secret Black Ops 4 Dark Ops (opens in new tab) challenges:

Black Ops 4 Blackout Career Challenges – Professional

• My First Time (Get a victory)
• Winner Winner (Win 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• I’ll Do It Myself (Win any Duos or Quads game as the last player alive on your team five times)  – Three Tiers available
• Solo Victor (Get five wins in this mode) – Three Tiers available
• Duos Victor (Get five wins in this mode) – Three Tiers available
• Quads Victor (Get five wins in this mode) – Three Tiers available
• Solo Conquest (Place top 5 in this mode 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• Duos Conquest (Place top 5 in this mode 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• Quads Conquest (Place top 5 in this mode 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• My Participation Award (Place Top 25 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• Unthinking Act of Murder (Eliminate 10 enemies) – Three Tiers available
• Career Scavenger (Scavenge 1500 items) – Three Tiers available

Black Ops 4 Blackout Career Challenges – Survivalist

• Team Player (Revived a squadmate 25 times) – Three Tiers available
• Heal Up (Use any health item on yourself 100 times) – Three Tiers available
• Amored Up (Acquire and equip armor 50 times) – Three Tiers available
• Backpacker (Collect 50 backpacks) – Three Tiers available
• Got the Drop (Kill 25 enemies without taking damage from them) – Three Tiers available
• Amphibious Assault (Eliminate an enemy while underwater five times) – Three Tiers available
• Getaway Vehicle (Escape 10 times from a fight using a vehicle) – Three Tiers available
• Perks? Really? (Finish a game in the top 10 with a Perk active 25 times) – Three Tiers available
• Equip It and Mint It (Eliminate enemies 25 times using equipment) – Three Tiers available
• True Sniper (Kill an enemy at long range with a Sniper Rifle five times) – Three Tiers available
• Roster Update (Complete five unlock missions) – Three Tiers available
• One Step Ahead (Finish 25 games in the top 10 without taking damage from the circle) – Three Tiers Available

Black Ops 4 Blackout Operations Challenges – Heroics

• Destroyer of Vehicles (Destroy 10 occupied vehicles) – Three Tiers available
• Revenge is a Dish… (Eliminate the enemy that put you in Last Stand 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• …Best Served Cold (Eliminate the enemy that killed your squadmate and place top 5 in five different games) – Three Tiers available
• This is Just Cruel (Win the game without being downed five times) – Three Tiers available
• Pack Hunter (Eliminate two or more enemies from the same squad five times) – Three Tiers available
• Nope (Eliminate the enemy that damaged you 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• Path to Peace (Win a game with no kills)
• Keen Focus (Eliminate five enemies while blinded or concussed)
• Frantic Defense (Take damage while unarmed and kill the attacker five times) – Three Tiers available
• Get Straight To It (Eliminate two or more enemies within 30 seconds of deploying 10 times) – Three Tiers available
• Clutch (Kill an entire enemy squad singlehandedly in a Quads match)
• Masochist (Place in the top 5 using only the first inventory item picked up)

Black Ops 4 Blackout Operations Challenges – Vehicular

• Destruction Derby (Destroy an occupied vehicle with a vehicle one time) – Three Tiers available
• Just in Time (Exit a vehicle that is about to be destroyed by a locked on rocket five times) – Three Tiers available
• Silent Gliding (Travel 10 miles in a wingsuit) – Three Tiers available
• Road Trippin’ (Travel 10 miles in a land vehicle) – Three Tiers available
• Water Rat (Travel 10 miles in a sea vehicle) – Three Tiers available
• I Believe I Can Fly (Travel 50 miles in an air vehicle) – Three Tiers available
• Saw it In the Movies (Kill 10 enemies as a passenger of any vehicle) – Three Tiers available
• Top Tour (Drive or Pilot all vehicle types in a game of Blackout five times) – Three Tiers available
• Road Rage (Run over an enemy with a land vehicle to kill them five times) – Three Tiers available
• Hijacker (Kill one or more enemies that are passenger in a land vehicle five times)
• Pirate (Kill one or more enemies that are passenger in a sea vehicle five times)
• Scoundrel (Kill one or more enemies that are passenger in a air vehicle five times)

Black Ops 4 Blackout Dark Ops Challenges

• Back in the Ground (Kill 100 Zombies)
• Baller (Scoring a basket at any of the basketball hoops)
• Fist Fighter (Kill an enemy using only your fists)
• Open the Blast Doors (Open the Blast Doors at the Fracking Tower)
• Practice Makes Perfect (Shoot a bullseye at the Firing Range from 90 meters)
• Red Light, Green Light (Loot an underwater supply stash at the Cargo Dock)
• Respect Your Elders (Pay your respects to Tanbor Fudgely)
• Zombie Jams (Activate the jukebox at the Diner)
• TBC

Want more Black Ops 4 Blackout tips (opens in new tab)? Why not check out our guide to the best Black Ops 4 specialists (opens in new tab) or arm up properly with our pick of the best Black Ops 4 weapons (opens in new tab).

The post Black Ops 4 Blackout Challenges List – Every challenge youll need to complete appeared first on Game News.

That Beta is kicking off in select regions on Android and iOS devices, as the Tencent-developed shooter is becoming available to play for certain users who pre-register for access on the Google Play Store (opens in new tab) and Apple Store. 

How to download Call of Duty Mobile (opens in new tab) | Call of Duty mobile best guns (opens in new tab) | Call of Duty Mobile cheats (opens in new tab) | How to get a nuke in Call of Duty Mobile | Call of Duty mobile zombies (opens in new tab)

“The first limited-scale closed Beta test began this week in India”, reads the latest blog post on the Call of Duty website (opens in new tab), announcing the news. “A regional Beta test will kick-off soon in Australia, with more territories coming online in the coming months.”

Activision hasn’t confirmed which exact regions or countries will get access to Call of Duty Mobile following Australia and India, but a new trailer (seen above) has been released showing off more gameplay from the game, which rolls multiplayer (including Competitive Ranked mode and Clans), PvE Zombies, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (opens in new tab)’s Blackout battle royale mode into one, portable package. 

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The biggest and best new games of 2019 (opens in new tab) (and beyond)

Already, those who have managed to get in are already posting extended gameplay previews of Call of Duty Mobile in action (opens in new tab), and those who are still eagerly awaiting news of access can expect to see an email appear in their inbox over the coming weeks and months, provided they’ve already pre-registered. 

We have to say, while we haven’t been able to play it for ourselves, the new footage shows an impressively smooth and good looking mobile variant of classic Call of Duty as we know and love it. Here’s hoping a US and UK release isn’t too far away.

Check out which COD to play right now with our list of the best Call of Duty games (opens in new tab) so far, or watch the video below for a guide on everything else that’s out this week. 

The post The Call of Duty Mobile beta has begun: Heres how to sign up and get playing appeared first on Game News.

Before you bristle at the mention of loot boxes, note that this is merely an additional layer atop the 100 tiers of Operation rewards you can earn simply by playing. The Reserves have been reopened by Blackjack, a familiar face from Black Ops 3 (and a member of Seraph’s 54 Immortals faction) who’s offering up loot boxes called Cases which contain a random cosmetic item. Cases can be earned by playing multiplayer and Blackout modes, or you can purchase them in packs of three called Crates for 200 COD Points, aka $2. The Reserves also bring us Signature weapons which grant 25% bonus XP per kill – not an actual power advantage, but a handy way to grind a bit quicker if you’re chasing higher Prestige levels. You may also notice the addition of one personalized deal slot in the Black Market, which will refresh daily. 

Speaking of Black Ops 3, Operation Grand Heist brings back one of its fan-favorite heroes as a Specialist character in multiplayer: Outrider, a stealthy hunter who wields an extremely lethal bow that’d put Rambo to shame. Her unique equipment slot is the Hawk, a pilotable drone that you can park anywhere in the air; once it’s hunkered down, it’ll tag any enemies with a little red box that you can see through walls. If that sounds overpowered, don’t worry – it has an extremely long cooldown and can easily be shot out of the air. Meanwhile, Outrider’s special issue weapon is her iconic Sparrow, a bow with explosive-tipped arrows that’ll insta-gib anyone you hit dead-on. Unlocking Outrider is easy – she’s available at Tier 1 of Operation Grand Heist, so she should be available after one or two games.

Along with the usual suite of colorful costumes and nameplate customizations, Operation Grand Heist also includes three new weapons. There’s the fully automatic Rampage shotgun, a nifty folding SMG called the Switchblade X9, and the novelty Cha-Ching melee weapon so you can deck your enemies with a big ol’ sack of coins. If you bought the Black Ops Pass (read: season pass), you can also jump into two new multiplayer maps: the outdoor Lockup map that’d be right at home in Rainbow Six Siege, and the grandiose Casino resort full of tables and slot machines that are about to be full of bullets.

Blackout players can take refuge in a new area called Ghost Town, featuring an Old West town based on Black Ops 2’s Standoff map – resting atop a cavernous mine full of zombies – as well as new structures which have been added added all over the map. This Friday, February 22, a cops-and-robbers-themed mode called Hot Pursuit will arrive with three new vehicles that should speed up Blackout’s pacing. Things will also get goofy now that you can drop into Blackout as a trigger-happy zombie or the Cosmic Silverback, a bloodthirsty ape who makes Overwatch’s Winston look tame.

Those are the main highlights of Operation Grand Heist, but Treyarch has outlined all the additions, big and small, in its blog post, including teases of new content (Zombies mode included) that’s coming later in the Operation. As with the previous Operations, Grand Heist will run for just over 8 weeks, after which its items will be gone, presumably for good (or at least a very long time).

If you want to show off your hardcore skills, here’s how to get all the Black Ops 4 Dark Ops Challenges (opens in new tab). 

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 4s latest Operation brings a ton of new content – and new loot boxes appeared first on Game News.

• Black Ops 4 Blackout tips to know before you play

To access the start of the potential Easter egg you have to complete every single Specialist tutorial with one Bronze star. When you do, you unlock one final clip called “It’s YOU in the box”, which sees Frank Woods visit a wheelchair bound Mason in Blackout’s Asylum area (made from zombies map fave Verrückt, originally from Call of Duty: World at War) and look at a noticeboard on the wall. As Mason rambles incoherently (“Angola” seems to be the only word everyone agrees on right now) Woods states that “No, it’s you in the box, It’s always been you. Don’t black out man. I’m on it.”  

I’ve added the emphasis on “black out” there just in case you missed the clue. 

Now, that cutscene noticeboard does exists in Asylum on Blackout and, once you’ve completed the tutorials and watched the final clip, it shows four specialists with their names wrong, as shown here by Redditor DanSpurr (opens in new tab): 

This apparently isn’t on the board before you get that final Mason/Wood clips and, as the big red arrows show, the names are wrong. It also seems to show younger versions of the characters. 

This is the focus of the Easter egg hunt right now. The current theories (opens in new tab) point to clues involving the Intel you can unlock for various Specialists, as well as things Woods says to you when you complete different Specialist tutorials. Some think (opens in new tab) it requires certain things to be done at specific map locations, or that the numbers you can hear in some of the intel means something. One likely theory suggests that you have to play as a four man squad using those noticeboard characters to achieve anything. 

The main thing is that there are a lot of ideas right now and not a lot of progress. Developer Treyarch loves a good Easter egg and previous ones have taken ages to even discover, let alone solve. If this does go somewhere it could be weeks, if not months, before anyone has a Eureka moment. Until then it’s fulling ‘does that tree look funny to you?’ levels of conspiracy madness among fans. 

If you want some help surviving long enough to get to the Asylum and see for yourself then here are the best Black Ops 4 weapons (opens in new tab) to increase your chances. 

The post Theres a Black Ops 4 Blackout Specialist Easter egg that no one can work out right now appeared first on Game News.

Though Beenox’s output of Spidey titles was steady between 2010 and 2014, the quality of each was less so, especially in the shadow of Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2, which remains a benchmark for Spider-Man games still to this day. With Peter Parker making his big comeback this month, however, I figured it would be an apt time to chat with Beenox’s co-head Thomas Wilson to look back on the past, present, and future of Spider-Man’s ever changing relationship with interactive entertainment, and the studio’s own history with the character in particular. 

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010)

Shattered Dimensions was Beenox’s first real Spider-Man title, following its successful ports of old games like Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Praised for its ambitious, fan servicing plot and confident vision, Shattered Dimensions was a very strong start for Beenox, so it’s no surprise that it also happens to be Wilson’s personal favourite too.

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“At the time, the ask was to rejuvenate the franchise with something that would be new and innovative, so Activision had given us carte blanche to start brainstorming ideas inspired by the comic books, not the movies. So we started to look for anything that hadn’t been seen in a game before. There had already been a few Spider-Man games out there, but our Senior Producer was a huge comic book fan and he started talking about Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Noir, and so on, who I’d never heard of before, and so we came up with this idea of playing multiple Spider-Men within the multiverse. From there, we could create four different universes with their own art styles and a Megaman structure where players fought a boss per level, which we thought was a nice twist on the Spider-Man open world tradition.”

“Shattered Dimensions was the game we had the most fun creating. It was the most chaotic development, but this idea of coming up with four distinctive art directions injected a lot of personality into the level design and boss battles. I wish we could have done a Shattered Dimensions 2, as there’s so much content to draw inspiration from in the comics. Now, of course, the industry has evolved, but after the first game I wish we could have jumped right into the sequel, because I loved the formula and approach we had.” 

Spider-Man: Edge of Time (2011)

After the success of Shattered Dimensions, Beenox was in the unfortunate position of attempting to follow up on struck gold with limited resources. Edge of Time took place in two different Spider-Man universes, down from Shattered Dimension’s four, as the Amazing Spider-Man worked with Spider-Man 2099 to stop a powerful foe that threatened them both. Many found Edge of Time to be strangely limited and repetitive compared to the previous game, but Wilson explains that Beenox had been under a lot of pressure. 

“The big difference with Edge of Time is that we had very little development time, and I guess that’s the reason why some of the fans were potentially disappointed that it was half of what Shattered Dimensions had been. It was a situation where a game needed to be released quickly, so the decision was made to focus exclusively on Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099, as we knew that it was a storyline that we’d seen in the comic books.” 

“There was this cause and effect gameplay idea where what you were doing in the Amazing Spider-Man time period would affect what was going on the future, so there was a few situations where we had a picture-in-picture experience where a villain was killing Spider-Man 2099 and you had to defeat him in the other timeline first. It was definitely a smaller game, though, and I think that’s where it really fell short.”

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

With two original Spidey titles to its name, Beenox was eventually put to work by Activision on a movie tie-in game to The Amazing Spider-Man reboot starring Andrew Garfield. It would mark the first time in a long time that players could get back to liberally swinging around Manhattan as the webhead in a video game, and Wilson welcomed the challenge to return the character to an open-world after his brief stint with linearity. 

“We worked closely with Marvel and Sony to understand what their vision for this reboot was, and what we could do to come up with something that was tied to the movie. So we returned to Manhattan and, using our technology, we basically created a city editor that let our artists build the city from scratch. We went on location and took a lot of pictures to get references; we’re not New Yorkers, so we wanted to make sure that we created a city that was close enough to the real thing.”

“This was right around the time developers were no longer just recreating the movie’s story in a tie-in game. The tendency was to make a game inspired by the movie but not bound to the same narrative, so from that point on we had quite a lot of freedom to look for things that we thought would make sense within the world of the Amazing Spider-Man. It’s a process that required us to talk to Marvel’s experts and to Sony to explain our intentions, but they felt pretty good about our approach and so from there it’s just a matter of working with writers to validate that with Marvel.”

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

As Garfield’s nascent franchise received a hastily made sequel, so too did Beenox’s movie tie-in series. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was probably the studio’s least well received Spider-Man game of the four, especially as this was Spidey’s first appearance on current-gen consoles, but looked about as technically proficient as an Xbox 360 launch title. Wilson readily admits that it was not the game he’d hope to have finished Beenox’s journey with Spider-Man on. 

“There was another movie coming, and we tried to make improvements on the game on a whole bunch of fronts. The graphical fidelity of the city, the combat, adding stealth missions, and so on… but I made one of the worst design decisions of my entire career in that game!” 

“We created what we called the ‘Hero or Menace’ system, which was a good idea on paper, where Spider-Man had a reputation meter that went up or down depending on whether the player was taking care of crime or not, but we ran out of varied mission design, so it just felt repetitive and penalising. That hurt us in the reviews when the game came out, and I apologise for that! Sometimes you think something is good, but by the time you realise it isn’t, it’s way too late in development to remove it, so we just tried refining it as much as we could before release.” 

Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)

So, now that the property is off his and Beenox’s hands, what does Wilson make of Insomniac’s Spider-Man game, and of the evolved superhero genre at large? You won’t be too surprised to hear he’s just as full of praise for the studio as everyone else is right now. 

“I think Insomniac taking over the reins of Spider-Man is great. I’m a huge fan of their games and I’ve been playing them for a long time, so I was watching closely when I found out they were developing it. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but I’m look forward to trying it out. What I’ve seen so far looks great!” 

“I will say it brings back nostalgia, especially as in their case they’ve had like five years of development to make the game. I only wish we had five years on any one of the Spider-Man games we made! Superheroes are great characters to be making games for, and working on them is a lot of fun. To me, it doesn’t matter how the characters evolve in the theaters, because you can pretty much dive into the content that each movie offers to make a game of your choice.” 

From superheroes to super soldiers

At the moment, Wilson and the rest of Beenox are hard at work helping Treyarch bring Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (opens in new tab) to PC, which he calls a “AAA PC title with all the bells and whistles that involves”, but the studio’s co-head promises big things from the studio in the long term. 

“I can’t really talk about it, but all I can say is that what’s coming is super exciting. We have a great future in front of us, and Activision is a big family so there’s a lot of opportunity to work on some very cool titles. You just look back to our first title, a tie-in game to Bee Movie, and you can see it’s been quite a journey for the past 13 years. I feel very privileged to be a part of it all.” 

For more vigilante antics, check out our run down of the best superhero movies (opens in new tab) of all time, and count how many Spideys make the cut. 

The post “I wish we couldve made Shattered Dimensions 2”: Looking back at Beenox’s history of Spider-Man games with studio co-head Thomas Wilson appeared first on Game News.

As with any sweeping systems change, the unfamiliar health system – which includes an honest-to-God health bar in the bottom left, complete with a numerical representation of your wellness – has ruffled many a camo-colored feather in the community. Along with the admittedly overpowered Body Armor perk that anyone can use, some players are critical (opens in new tab) of how the new method of healing impacts CoD’s famously fast time-to-kill (often abbreviated as TTK). But after a weekend spent in the PS4-exclusive beta (and before excitedly jumping into this weekend’s beta test that includes Xbox One and PC), I’m convinced that the self-heal is a masterstroke for honing the breakneck pace that CoD has modernized like no other FPS.

In my mind, CoD has come to be the contemporary successor of the old-school arena shooter, with the speed of Quake and a lethality just shy of Unreal Tournament’s Instagib mode. So instead of forcing players to always cower behind cover whenever they’ve been tagged by a hail of gunfire, why not give them more options? Black Ops 4’s syringe is a tool that allows you to constantly push forward like well-oiled killing machine – but it doesn’t restrict you from falling back on familiar methods.

I’m totally in line with the latter, still stuck in the old ways of diving for a safe hiding spot, tapping L1 to stab myself with a lifeforce-restoring needle, and meekly aiming at the nearest doorway while I wait to heal back to full. But I’ve seen tons of expert players (mostly via killcams and the end-of-game highlights) rack up some amazing streaks as they wade into war with no fear, skillfully waiting for the right moment to heal up during the middle of a Commando-esque (opens in new tab) rampage. Charging forward like a bloodthirsty, bullet-spraying rhinoceros has always been a gamble in any Call of Duty, but with the heal-over-time effect of the stims, it now feels more like a calculated risk with huge rewards rather than a suicidal blaze of glory. 

It’s also important to remember that we live in a post-Overwatch world, where the FPS genre has come to be defined by the actions players have at their disposal besides running and gunning. Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 already put the foundations in place with its unique Specialist heroes, each with their own distinct abilities and ultimate moves. Now Black Ops 4’s health system has solidified the feeling that its Specialists have multiple abilities to manage at any given time – stim on L1, Specialist equipment on R1. There’s an inherent excitement to seeing that you’ve got both abilities at the ready should you need them, and a thrilling tension to those last few seconds when you’re waiting for your stim shot to replenish before running into the next firefight. Overwatch’s ubiquity has trained us to enjoy micromanaging the cooldowns that exist outside our ammo clips – but brilliantly, it doesn’t feel so bad to be shot dead before you had the chance to heal up. With the quickness of CoD’s respawns, you’re instantly back into the fight, eager to tap L1 and heal yourself just a bit quicker next time, or have the courage to push forward mid-heal instead of falling back.

As always, the current designs are always subject to change, and the beta tests exist to help Treyarch hone in on the perfect tuning for all these interwoven game mechanics. But for my money – and yes, it is my money, I ponied up for a pre-order like everyone else – Black Op 4’s health system is one of the most refreshing iterations yet to Call of Duty’s time-honored multiplayer. Every time I see that little yellow cross at the bottom left of my HUD start glowing, I get excited, with killstreak aspirations made possible by that extra bit of survivability – and a constant source of excitement is surely a good thing for any FPS.  

If you’re eager to jump into the fight, don’t miss our Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 tips (opens in new tab) that’ll help you dominate the beta.

The post I love how healing is intentional and dangerous in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 appeared first on Game News.

There’s barely any info to go on right now: a community reveal event is slated for May 17, while the game itself will debut for PS4, Xbox One, and PC (so no Switch version, then?) on October 12, 2018. The sizzle reel of gameplay is just shots of the Black Ops series to date, with glimpses of Alex Mason, zombies, and the Specialists of Black Ops 3. But there are a few noteworthy things to pick apart in this fleeting reveal.

Let’s start with some optimism: the tagline “Forget what you know.” Could this mean that Black Ops 4 will go so far into the future of warfare as to include time travel, letting you retcon the storied history of the Black Ops series? Or maybe it’s another play on the unreliable narrator and hallucinations of the original Black Ops? Time will tell (pun not intended but retained).

But what really gets me is the sheer hilarity of how starkly unexciting the logo reveal was. The livestream on Call of Duty’s official Twitch channel had its fair share of false starts, with video cutting in and out erratically (hey, technical difficulties happen – we’ve all been there). Then, when a clear signal was established, around 12,000 giddy viewers were treated to roughly five straight minutes of mundane metalworking. Three people welded the logo we’d already seen out of a giant slab of metal for what seemed like an eternity, as the chat filled with cries of “stop wasting my time,” “boring af,” and the Residentsleeper emoji. Granted, that could probably be said for just about any livestream with those kinds of numbers. Also, is it just me, or is the finished product a tad crooked? Not that I could do any better.

You can watch the grueling reveal in its entirety above, or just skip to the last minute for the goods. We’ll have more to actually dig into when Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is fully revealed on May 17.

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The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 officially confirmed with a hilariously unhype logo reveal appeared first on Game News.