This week, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4[1] sees its first multiplayer beta. Dubbed the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 private beta[2], it’ll run from August 3 to August 6[3] on PS4 with Xbox One and Windows PC to follow. On the surface it might seem like any usual pre-release trial for the yearly franchise, which has seen multiplayer betas for Call of Duty: Black Ops 3[4], Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare[5], and Call of Duty: World War 2[6] in recent memory. However, look a little deeper and you’ll realise that it’s much more.
With Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, developer Treyarch is forsaking the usual single-player campaign[7] in favour of traditional multiplayer modes, an expanded Call of Duty Zombies co-operative experience complete with multiple factions, and of course battle royale that’s known as Blackout. So, if you’re on the fence about buying Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, the beta and its subsequent impressions are your only way of knowing if its any good.
But just ‘good’ isn’t the benchmark anymore. We’re in a world where every big budget game aims to be a service, with post-game patches and updates adding content and in some cases changing the game completely. We’ve seen this with Fortnite[8], PUBG[9], Assassin’s Creed Origins[10], Final Fantasy XV[11], and even Activision’s own Overwatch[12]. This culture of game developers altering content way past the original release date isn’t restricted to giants like Epic Games, Bluehole, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and Activision either. Independent studios like Hello Games have updated No Man’s Sky with a massive...