Treyarch has decided to join the free-to-play battle royale club with its Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout mode, however, it isn"t permanent. The shooter"s battle royale mode will be free to access for this entire month starting on April 2 and running through April 31. The standard multiplayer and cooperative zombies modes aren"t part of the promotion.
Even though it"s temporary, the event will have Blackout competing with the other free-to-play battle royale behemoths Fortnite and Apex Legends. This should also help in boosting player numbers by a considerable number. The PC version has been struggling for some time now.
As usual, PC players will only need to go through Blizzard"s Battle.net launcher to jump in, while Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players will require Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus subscriptions respectively to join in.
The free event arrives just as PlayStation 4 players receive the mode"s first new map: Alcatraz, which should be familiar to Zombies players. Judging by the size, this map is probably designed to hold a smaller number of players than the standard map. Blackout"s Alcatraz will be available to Xbox One and PC players once the PlayStation 4 exclusivity period comes to an end, though no exact dates have been revealed yet.