Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 from 2018 was a turning-point installment for the series, mainly because it was the first numbered entry to completely drop the classic linear single-player campaign. Treyarch replaced it with a set of standalone Specialist Headquarters missions that develop the stories of individual multiplayer characters, and shifted the game's focus to its live modes - multiplayer, cooperative Zombies, and an entirely new battle royale arena, Blackout. Multiplayer also returned to more grounded movement compared to the previous Black Ops 3, dropping vertical boost jumps and wall-running, a deliberate response by Treyarch to criticism of previous installments for being too fast-paced and chaotic. The game was released simultaneously for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Content-wise, all three versions were identical at launch: the same multiplayer maps, the same three Zombies chapters, and the same Blackout map, assembled from locations known from previous entries in the series. The differences were again mainly technical - console versions targeted a stable 60 frames per second at a resolution matching that generation's hardware, while the PC version allowed higher resolution, unlimited frame rate, and more precise mouse aiming, which was appreciated mainly by competitive multiplayer and Blackout players. Zombies also, for the first time in the series, offered three separate maps right at launch simultaneously on all three platforms, instead of the gradual content rollout players were used to from previous installments.

The PC version brought one notable change compared to the series' usual practice - Activision, for the first time, did not release it on Steam but exclusively through Blizzard's Battle.net platform, which Activision Blizzard was pushing at the time as its main distribution channel. Players thus had to switch to a new interface and a new launcher, but in exchange gained unlimited frame rate, support for higher resolution, and finer mouse control, which was a noticeable advantage over the console versions in both Blackout and classic multiplayer rankings.

Why play: Thanks to more precise mouse aiming compared to a controller, the PC version is worth the attention of competitive Blackout and classic multiplayer players, even though because of Battle.net they have to get used to a different launcher than Steam.