Blackout’s revival time has been nearly doubled, emotes will be added

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s battle royale mode, Blackout, will have some changes in its launch-day release from its beta version.

Swedish YouTuber Tobias “tejbz” Öjerfalk said he talked with Treyarch’s studio design director David Vonderhaar, who confirmed revival times will be extended, there will be emotes in the game, and that the third level of armor will be weaker than it was in the beta.

While tejbz said revivals would take twice as long, Matt Scronce, a senior game designer at Treyarch, said that’s not quite true. Instead of doubling it, which would’ve increased the time from three seconds to six, Scronce said the revive time will be five seconds on launch day. He also said that this will give a greater incentive to use the Medic perk, which cuts the revival time in half.

Scronce also confirmed there would be an increase in crawling speed. He explained the change, saying a faster crawl allows players to get to cover quicker, necessitating a longer revive time.

The emotes tejbz mentioned weren’t discussed by Scronce, but tejbz did say that the emotes wouldn’t be the same as many seen in Fortnite: Battle Royale. Instead of dances, the emotes will consist of salutes and communication messages that will allow players to interact more effectively with each other.

The nerf to Level Three Armor comes as little surprise to beta participants. Many in the community expressed how much they disliked the item, with some saying it gave opposing players too much of an advantage.

Black Ops 4 will be released worldwide on Oct. 12.