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COD: Black Ops 4 Producer: Lack of campaign doesn’t indicate absense from future games

Pepin

Pepin

Member
Oct 27, 2017
281
London
I conducted an interview with Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII senior producer Yale Miller earlier today. As part of a roundtable discussion, he mentioned that just because Black Ops IIII doesn't have a single player campaign, that doesn't necessarily mean future CoD games won't have one.

"[The single player mode] is only missing at this moment in time" explained Yale Miller, Senior Producer at Treyarch in an interview with Daily Star Online at the Community Day reveal event in Los Angeles.

"I really think with every game we make, we finish that title and then we ask 'what is it fans are gonna love the most?' If that's another traditional campaign, then we'll make another traditional campaign.

"But right now, for what our goals were for Black Ops IIII, it was just [multiplayer, Zombies and Blackout] that we were focused on."
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You can read the rest of the article here.

Didn't know if this belonged in the parent thread for BlOps 4? Seemed like a relevant thread topic considering so many people have been curious about why they dropped single player.

Turn me into a Battle Royale if old.
 
Lukar

Lukar

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 27, 2017
23,389
Sounds like BO4 definitely won't have it, but it isn't necessarily the start of a trend for the series as a whole.

I hope Infinity Ward's game has one.
 
ThroughtheVoid

ThroughtheVoid

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,890
Something definitely wasn't right or that good with the campaign and was scrapped in favour of the BR mode after it became immensely popular.
 
Deleted member 11093

Deleted member 11093

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
9,095
Surely they know that locking it behind a paid season pass is far more insulting and would create more backlash.

You either implement it, or you don't, I don't think for one second that Activision is planning on making it a free DLC.
 

Deleted member 9317

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Oct 26, 2017
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I honestly don't blame them. Black Ops 3, singleplayer was garbage, and they're done telling whatever story they can tell especially if this takes place between Black Ops 2, and Black Ops 3. I'm completely fine with each character getting individual story in a style of small smirkishes and being disguised as a tutorial and challenge mode for all the characters.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
LOL

I wish they would just tell it like it is. That entire reveal today was filled with so many buzzwords it felt super disingenuous to me. They need to be more forth coming with what this game is before I spend money on it.
 
Sir Guts

Sir Guts

Use of alt account
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Oct 26, 2017
10,480
"I love narrative games, there's a place for narrative games, but for us and what we wanted to do, it was the right decision [to not have a single-player campaign]".
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We all know that they all know that the majority of CoD fanbase are into the MP. So they just saved time by not making a campaign
Still not interested. I always enjoyed CoD's campaign and this will be the first I don't buy I guess
 
Strikerrr

Strikerrr

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,102
Sounds like the Polygon rumor is true that they couldn't get it ready in time
The sources, who asked for anonymity, said that as Black Ops 4's release date approached, it became evident that development on the single-player campaign wouldn't be completed. One source said Treyarch has since focused Black Ops 4's development on expanding multiplayer and the series' popular Zombies mode. The source described an emphasis on cooperative modes as a potential stand-in for the typical single-player campaign experience.
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https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/17/17248230/call-of-duty-black-ops-4-single-player-cod-blops
 
TailorDKS

TailorDKS

Member
Apr 18, 2018
402
Sounds like:
"We had no time to develop Story and battle royale - so we did br and the next Call of Duty can change some textures and will have Story and br."

I guess when Black Ops 4 is a huge success, then you can say bye to Story In Call of Duty.
 
Remark

Remark

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,552
Love how now people are clamoring for a campaign.

Why ya'll care so much about a fucking CoD campaign. Treyarch hasn't made a good one in 6 years.
 
JK-Money

JK-Money

Attempt to circumvent a ban with an alt account
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Oct 27, 2017
2,558
TailorDKS said:
Sounds like:
"We had no time to develop Story and battle royale - so we did br and the next Call of Duty can change some textures and will have Story and br."

I guess when Black Ops 4 is a huge success, then you can say bye to Story In Call of Duty.
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Thats some bullshit they have like a 3 year gap now, your telling me you couldnt make a michael bay movieish game with a few explosions some bad guy with no depth what so ever and not roll it out in time?
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,145
CoD campaigns were always my 'summer popcorn flick' gaming equivalent. nothing great but you had a little fun, watched explosions, got to turn your brain off for a little while. as time went on it felt more and more like obligation fulfillment so yeah i don't see them coming back for awhile, especially since blops4 will sell a gajillion even if it is a "failed experiment"

i'm pretty ambivalent as there's much better shooters out there suited for SP. like if Titanfall 3 or (god forbid) Doom went in that direction i'd be all hell no but i can live without CoD singleplayer
 
TerminusFox

TerminusFox

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,851
They weren't even going to get to Black Ops 2 quality, let alone Infinite Warfare's campaign.

Still a shitty decision all around.
 

D65

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,862
Maybe they're right and they sell just as much with no Campaign...

It might be a sad trend of popular games, but they'd be smart to do it this way. After all, if their fans would prefer a better multiplayer it's for them.
 
TailorDKS

TailorDKS

Member
Apr 18, 2018
402
JK-Money said:
Thats some bullshit they have like a 3 year gap now, your telling me you couldnt make a michael bay movieish game with a few explosions some bad guy with no depth what so ever and not roll it out in time?
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Well of course this could be possible, but its not how it works. I guess they have a shedule where they have to focus on the story, multiplayer and so on.

But now think of Activision. They could have seen how sucesful and popular Battle Royale (Fortnite and PUBG) was and told Treyarch they have to add the br mode no matter what.
This could destroy the whole shedule they had and without a bigger team or more time, this would not work. So its either no story or delay and for Activision thats an easy question. And I guess exactly this happened.
 
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,862
they can't just add a singleplayer afterwards like it's an easy task. If the game doesn't have it for release, it probably won't have it at any point of its life.
 
scitek

scitek

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,070
I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see them start making and selling standalone Call of Duty campaigns each year for $60, and multiplayer for another $60.
 
Dr. Caroll

Dr. Caroll

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,111
TailorDKS said:
I guess when Black Ops 4 is a huge success, then you can say bye to Story In Call of Duty.
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There are hundreds of developers across multiple studios developing Call of Duty campaigns. Ending production of campaigns immediately would result in hundreds of layoffs across Activision's studios because none of those people joined those companies to make anything except singleplayer games. If Activision had any plans to shut down campaign production for Call of Duty, we'd know about it already because Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward would have imploded. Of course 3+ years from now could be another story.
JK-Money said:
Thats some bullshit they have like a 3 year gap now, your telling me you couldnt make a michael bay movieish game with a few explosions some bad guy with no depth what so ever and not roll it out in time?
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I hope you realise that releasing a polished Call of Duty campaign in a mere three years is a remarkable achievement of project management. Unlike, say, Metro: Exodus, they don't have the luxury of being able to delay their game for 6 months or so. They must release a new game every 36 months like clockwork no matter what goes wrong during development. I suspect that in Black Ops 4's case, something went very, very wrong. Bungie-grade wrong.
 

Deleted member 11976

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Oct 27, 2017
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They're doing 3 MP modes in one game, which is way better for monetization and retention. The SP campaign is dead for Treyarch, no doubt. My guess is that they already spend a fortune in terms of time and money for the light narratives and VO for Zombies, but that does better for them since it's highly replayable PVE MP.
 

KoolAid

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,677
The rumors said that Activision cancelled it because it was too outlandish, so it makes sense.
 
Gamer @ Heart

Gamer @ Heart

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Oct 26, 2017
9,575
KoolAid said:
The rumors said that Activision cancelled it because it was too outlandish, so it makes sense.
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panecasio said:
Production capacity and budget probably didn't leave room for 3 MP modes and 1 SP mode. They know which one stands to make the least financial return.
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The rumors said it was outlandish, but more specifically they said it was cancelled because whatever their vision may have been for it, it had no chance of being done by the time the game goes alpha this summer. No reason the part of the game they can sell lootboxes in should suffer because of a batshit campaign mode people will play once.
 
BeforeU

BeforeU

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What was the last good COD campaign? I honestly can't recall.
 
Alienous

Alienous

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,604
Investing a huge chunk of the budget into singleplayer probably doesn't make sense to Activision anymore. That's a large investment in a mode that is the hardest to monetize.

Overwatch's success, despite a lack of singleplayer, probably gave Activision confidence in leaving a campaign behind.
 
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