Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 Review - 8 Ups & 4 Downs

3. Blackout's Frustrating Progression System

The conventional multiplayer suite in Black Ops 4 does a fantastic job of constantly rewarding players with XP and unlocks that make every match feel like an accomplishment, as is the norm for the series.

The Battle Royale mode Blackout, however, touts a rather disappointing and minimalist progression system, where "merits" - Blackout's version of XP - are rather cheaply doled out only for kills, landing in the top 15 players, winning the match and completing challenges.

While most other high-profile Battle Royale games will hand out XP scaled to how long you last no matter how long that is, here there's little sense of reward unless you make it to the later stages of a game and rack up a couple of kills in the process. As such, levelling up actually feels like something of a chore, and that dopamine rush of filling your XP bar after each round is curiously absent.

Considering how the franchise has effectively perfected multiplayer progression, it's hugely disappointing that Blackout falls short in this area.