Watch today’s ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’ reveal event here

By Gabe Gurwin Published May 17, 2018

Activision and Treyarch will finally show off Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 to the world on Thursday, May 17, and you can watch it all right here.

The stream will begin at 10 a.m. PT/1 p.m. ET, and we’ll be hosting a feed through the Digital Trends Twitch channel, which you can view at the top of this post. We expect to hear details about the various modes in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, as well as get a look at gameplay from the shooter for the first time.

Recommended Videos

The pressure is certainly on Activision to deliver with this announcement, as reports claim Black Ops 4 will have one major change from other games in the series: No campaign mode. A staple of Call of Duty since the original game released in 2003, the campaigns have also been crucial components of the first three Black Ops games, as well as World at War, all of which share a continuity.

The publisher announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 in March, along with an October release date — the series typically launches each November. The teaser told fans to “forget what [they] know” about the series alongside footage of the earlier Black Ops games. If the reports surrounding the lack of a campaign are true, this seems to be an accurate statement.

In the campaign’s place could be the Call of Duty series’ take on the popular battle royale mode we’ve seen in games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Fortnite. Alongside that rumored mode, the game will apparently include a traditional multiplayer component, as well as a zombies mode, first introduced in 2008’s World at War.

Call of Duty’s main competitor, the Battlefield series, is also rumored to be developing a battle royale mode for its game this year, but the latter series won’t be doing it at the expense of a campaign. The unannounced game will be revealed on May 23 — about a week after Black Ops 4 — and is rumored to be returning to the series’ World War II roots.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 releases October 12. No platforms have been announced as of yet, but past games have released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Gaming

Game spending is up — and you can thank Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

A soldier shooting a beamshamsher in Black Ops 6.

Most of us knew that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 would be one of the biggest games of the year, but it's so big that it's doing a lot to boost games sales across the U.S.

This information comes from Circana (formerly NPD Group), which publishes a monthly report on U.S. video game spending. According to analyst Mat Piscatella, spending on hardware, software, and accessories was up 10% in October compared to the same time last year, and the spike was "primarily" driven by the release of Black Ops 6. Non-mobile video game subscription service spending was also up by 16%.

Gaming

The fastest ways to gain XP in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Kill Order gameplay in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Ever since Modern Warfare, Call of Duty fans have been obsessed with finding every tip and trick they can to level up faster. Now that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has arrived with a refreshed Prestige system, the drive to grind levels is again at an all-time high. While everything you do does earn you XP, they are not all created equal. Just like picking your Wildcards or Perks, earning XP as fast as possible takes a bit of thought and planning. If there's a piece of equipment you have your eye on at a high level, or just want to grind through some Prestige ranks as fast as possible, here are the fastest ways to grind XP in Black Ops 6.
Do your dailies

We'll get the most obvious tip out of the way first. Daily challenges are back and work just as they always have. Every 24 hours you will be given a handful of small optional tasks to complete for a heap of bonus XP. These can be things like getting Scorestreak kills, getting Point Blank Kills, and getting kills with a specific weapon type. Most daily challenges are worth 2,500 XP, which is already a nice bonus, but there is also a fourth one that can be worth between 3,000 and 5,000 additional XP. Each day you log on, you should prioritize your daily challenges.
Tailor your loadout and play the objective

Gaming

Xbox Game Pass is getting tons of new games following Black Ops 6 success

A cockpit view in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

We know a lot of you are playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Xbox right now, but the company just announced some games coming to Xbox Game Pass -- specifically the Game Pass Standard tier -- in the first half of November.

The biggest game coming to the service (and we mean that literally) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Xbox and developers Asobo Studio previously reported that it will have a smaller install size than its predecessor -- 127GB versus 157GB -- but it'll also require 64GB of RAM. All of this is to help stream immense detail to the player as they fly around the world. Asobo says helped it to increase "the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000." Alongside the hyperrealistic graphics is a new career mode where you go through training and missions to become a pilot and a challenge mode where you compete against other pilots. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to Game Pass at launch on November 19.