Warzone gets back-to-basics battle royale dubbed "Blackout 2" by Call of Duty fans

Eight years ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduced battle royale to the series with its Blackout mode, a formula Warzone vastly expanded over the years. Still, some players continue to crave the more straightforward battle royale experience offered by the original Blackout, and Warzone's Black Ops Royale is poised to deliver exactly that.

Black Ops Royale launches on March 12 at 9pm PT, or March 13 at 12am ET, and as the devs explain in a lengthy blog post, it's "an original Blackout-inspired Battle Royale with no Loadouts, no Gulag, and no Buy Stations."

The Gulag has been replaced by Redeploy Tokens, which essentially serve as extra lives, and Redeploy Towers, which teams can capture to revive their allies. Similarly, instead of loadouts and buy stations, you'll scavenge all of your loot in the classic battle royale way, rushing to map locations to grab the good gear before opposing players do.

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You'll be able to grab especially high-value loot from Cradle Breaches, which essentially replace the Zombie Zones of Blackout. During the match, a bomber will drop a hallucinatory gas canister that'll make you see a bunch of presumably fake zombies and certainly very real high-tier loot caches. Each Cradle Breach only lasts for a limited time, so you'll have to contend with both the zombies and other players gunning for that loot as you rush for the best gear.

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It seems that Black Ops Royale will launch as an all-quads affair, so smaller squads and solo players are out of luck, but the blog notes that that's just "to begin with." This isn't an LTM, so it seems that the mode is here to stay, and it's very possible that more squad sizes will become available in later updates.

The YouTube comments on the announcement trailer keep calling this "Blackout 2," and the devs are pretty explicit about the mode's inspiration. "There are clear influences from the core Blackout experience – like bullet drop and weapon handling, as well as the armor system and use of the Trauma Kit – capturing the Blackout pacing, traversal, and combat feel in a modern way," they explain in the announcement.

"This isn't a remake; it's a unique experience that pays homage to the Blackout core gameplay while keeping the flow of a match feeling right for Call of Duty: Warzone players," the devs say. Clearly, those players are more than ready for a mode exactly along these lines.

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