Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 May Not Have A Single Player Campaign

One of the big selling points each year for the Call of Duty games is the single-player campaign mode. Usually they're chock full of Hollywood-inspired set pieces and over-the-top cinematic action. Well, for this year's iteration of Call of Duty, there are rumors floating around that it may not have a single-player campaign mode.

Polygon is reporting that sources close to the project have revealed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 won't release with a standard single-player campaign mode. The rumors indicate that the developers at Treyarch weren't able to finish the single-player story mode for the game in time, and so Activision decided to ditch it and just focus on the zombies mode and the multiplayer.

If the rumors are true, then it would mean that this is the first mainline Call of Duty game to ship without a traditional campaign mode. Additionally, it would also spell a big change in the formula if Activision decided to ship the game at $60 without a single-player mode.

While some gamers have said that developers need to axe the single-player, the reality is that there are still millions of gamers out there who only play these games for the single-player campaign mode, just the same as there are gamers out there who only play the game for the multiplayer.

One of the replacement modes for the campaign is rumored to be a last-man standing mode themed after the current Battle Royale trend. This will be similar to the 100-player modes present in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite.

This doesn't seem unlikely given the fact that Activision has typically tried keeping Call of Duty fresh by tapping into whatever is popular during that time.

For a short while, Call of Duty went on a futuristic binge, where each game each year was set in the future. This worked up until Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, when gamers became future fatigued.

Of course, the more surprising element of this rumor is the possibility of the game foregoing the single-player campaign. While some people may not care for the single-player mode, there are some gamers who only play Call of Duty for that reason.

It's also surprising because Treyarch's last outing, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, introduced a four-player cooperative campaign, which was a huge departure from the typical single-player campaign mode.

Then again, perhaps this is the hook after all? Maybe it's not just a single-player campaign but a multiplayer campaign mode? It would be a risky move but I think it would go down a lot better than having no campaign mode at all.

Such a maneuver would depend a lot on the execution, however. Brink attempted to do the multiplayer campaign mode but it didn't go over so well.

If it's true that Black Ops 4 won't have a single-player campaign mode then it could create quite the stir when it releases this fall. We'll find out exactly what it has in store when Activision does a formal reveal next month on May 17th.