The Blackout Mode beta has come to an end, leaving many of us wondering what to do with our lives til the launch of Black Ops 4 on October 12th. The Blackout Beta was a major success for Treyarch, bringing in tons of positive response from players. Not only were players riding cloud nine, but stockholders of Activision saw a 7% jump in value. Such figures and response proved that Blackout was certain to be no let down, and may even prove competitive toward the already popular royales. We at RGB Productions had the opportunity to take part in the Blackout Beta, and boy oh boy was it exciting.



Gameplay

If we could use one word to describe the graphics of Blackout, that word would have to be: Beautiful. The way the sunlight shines upon the fresh greens of the vegetation and the way the sun glimmers off the water of the map’s streams is simply beautiful. The graphics, especially when experienced on the Xbox One X are one of the strongest aspects of Blackout that separates it from the same military-style royale of PUBG.

In regards to general gameflow, Blackout is rather fast-paced, with a full game lasting approximately 20-30 minutes, similar to the speed of Fortnite. The Blackout Beta started with a player size of 80, then was expanding in the last weekend of the beta to hold 88 players per match. Within the last two hours, Treyarch experimented with 100 players per map, as they hope to eventually be able to hit 115 (in honor of the zombie’s legacy, as explained by David Vonderhaar, Treyarch’s Game Designer Director).



Items of the Field

The beta brought up a few, but important concerns of gameplay, one of which was the overpowered property of level 3 armour, which greatly reduced bullet damage to the player. There were also problems regarding connecting with friends primarily on the Xbox platform, to the point that Treyarch was forced to disable sending game invites via Xbox Live services, which could be problematic if not fixed by game release, as it remained off throughout the entirety of the beta.

We at RGB Productions want to make sure that you are armed with the proper knowledge come October 12th, as knowledge can be one of the greatest assets on the battlefield. The following are two of the most important things that can be found while scavenging out on the battlefield of Blackout.



Medical Supplies:

Going into battle without these in your inventory is a sure way to finding death. There is never such thing as having too many meds in your inventory.

Bandages: fairly common, stackable to 10 bandages per item slot, heals user 25 points

Med Kits: less common than bandages, stackable to 5 kits, heals user 50 points

Trauma Kit: rare, stackable to 1, heals user to instant 200 health (50 above normal health)



Perks:

These perks can give any player an upper hand in battle, but are unfortunately limited to use,

ranging from 3 to 5 minutes.

Dead Silence: drastically dampens the player’s footsteps, perfect toward end-game

Awareness: boosts the sound of teammate and enemy footsteps, making for easy detection

Engineer: highlights enemy equipment and vehicles through walls in a white filled outline

Medic: use of healing items are faster, and teammates are given bonus health after revival

Consumer: the time it takes to consume perks and items is reduced

Outlander: the best friend to anyone who does not pay attention to the circle, boosts movement

speed and retaining of health when caught up in the storm

Skulker: sprinting speed is retained when crouched

Paranoia: alerts the player when they are being targeted by an enemy player with whispers

Brawler: successful punches give the player +50 health and bonus melee damage

Iron Lungs: holding breath for sniping and being underwater is lengthened

Reinforced: essentially a combination of Tac Mask and Flak Jacket

Looter: all loot nearby becomes highlighted with a white outline and is visible through walls

Where It Stands

To say that Blackout was a success in its Beta is close to an understatement, as the community responded much more positively than anyone expected. There still remains polishing to be done with Blackout Beta, such as previously discussed with armour and invites, but there remains time till official game release. RGB Productions will spend a lot of time on Black Ops 4 content and would like to cordially invite you to joining us in-game and on stream! Be sure to join the GNN Discord community to squad up with us!

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