Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 might ditch the single player campaign in favour of a battle royale mode and more multiplayer

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Single player campaigns are a thing of the past for Call of Duty, as reports say Black Ops 4 will be multiplayer only

It turns out Treyarch wasn't kidding when it asked us to"Forget what you know" during the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. 

We all know that every annual Call of Duty game has always had a single player campaign, in addition to its popular multiplayer component, right? Well you can forget about that, because Treyarch is apparently bringing us a sequel that'll focus exclusively on online content, with no campaign attached to Blacks Ops 4 whatsoever, according to unofficial reports. 

What's more, these rumors also state that a battle royale mode is coming to Black Ops 4, as yet another big IP jumps in on the popular 'last-man-standing' online game mode that's dominating the competitive multiplayer scene at present. 

These leaks were first reported on by Polygon, before sources corroborated the information with Kotaku and the Call of Duty focused website Charlie Intel, suggesting the news is more than just baseless gossip. 

To make up for the lack of a campaign, Black Ops 4 will supposedly feature story-based co-operative missions which, in addition to the franchise's expected zombies mode, will provide a more sizeable swathe of PvE content for players. 

But the real blame for Black Ops 4's absent campaign can, interestingly enough, be placed at the doorstep of Red Dead Redemption 2. 

Polygon states that, as a result of moving the game's release date up to the earlier month of October 2018 (to steer clear of Red Dead Redemption 2's nearby launch), it became apparent to the development team at Treyarch that work on a single player campaign was never going to be finished in time. 

As a result, the studio is now focused solely on expanding the game's multiplayer and zombies experiences, and we'll likely hear more about the details of all that during Black Ops 4's official reveal event on May 17, later next month.

Activision has refused to provide comment on any of this for now, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 still remains slated to release on October 12, 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

Why not check out our run down of the best Call of Duty games in the history of the franchise so far? I'm sure you can guess which instalment takes the number one spot...

Alex Avard
Alex Avard

Alex is a former Features Writer at GamesRadar, which once made him responsible for gracing the internet with as many of my words as possible, including reviews, previews, interviews, and more. Lucky internet!