The Real Reason Black Ops 4 Doesn't Have A Campaign

Activision and Treyarch might have put the Call of Duty series back on the map (not that its sales were anywhere near disastrous) with this year's installment, Black Ops 4, an entry that does things just a little bit differently. But it's exactly those things that make it unique to its predecessors that has made Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 the most anticipated game of this holiday season.

You might have read this headline months ago: "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 won't feature a single-player campaign mode." While it's true that Black Ops 4 has done away with the mode that was at the forefront of the series, the game more than makes up for it with the excellent Zombies mode and a new battle royale mode called Blackout. With Black Ops 4 enjoying a very warm reception, it might be time for Activision to consider ditching campaign mode for the whole franchise.

Here are the real reasons why Treyarch decided to ditch the single-player campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.

While you won't get a story mode from Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, you can play self-contained story missions for the Specialists featured in the multiplayer mode. These Specialist missions are set on the game's multiplayer maps and task players with completing several objectives. The main goal with Specialists Missions is to show players how to use each character.

"The key there is explaining about the Specialists," Black Ops 4 producer Miles Leslie told US Gamer. "Who they are and what they're about. So you get to know them, but at the same time, [we] educate you on how to use them."

The Specialist Missions also flesh out the backstories of these characters.

"The narrative around them is meant to give a sense of purpose," Treyarch co-head Dan Bunting told Variety. "Why they're together. Who are they working for? It builds the connective tissue between each one."

So there is a bit of story to be found in the game, just not as much as you're used to.

Another big reason Treyarch probably didn't bother with a campaign this year is that Call of Duty players don't seem to care about the single-player mode anymore. Ars Technica created a bar graph based on the completion rate of Call of Duty achievements on Xbox and Steam which shows how few players actually bother to complete the campaign.

According to the graph, which was published in 2018, only 9 percent of players finished the Black Ops 3 campaign on Steam and only 8.1 percent on Xbox. Only 20 percent of Steam players finished the Infinite Warfare campaign while only 12.8 percent did on Xbox. WWII's campaign saw an uptick: 38.2 percent of Steam players finished the campaign and 22.4 percent on Xbox. That's still less than half of the player base, though.

It doesn't help that these campaigns haven't been very well received. Rock Paper Shotgun said of Infinite Warfare's campaign, "The premise is brainless sci-fi politics with a lower-case 'p', a story which can safely be summarized as 'Killzone again' and stuffed with dry characters who have nothing interesting to say. The villains are likewise gray and lifeless."

Meanwhile, The Guardian said of Black Ops 3, "Like every Call of Duty before it, [it] is a throbbing mass of blockbuster movie cliches, masquerading as a cogent plot line."

No one was really twisting Treyarch's arm to design a new campaign.

Single-player campaigns aren't only seeing waning playercounts in terms of Call of Duty. According to publisher Electronic Arts, players are less interested in linear gaming experiences to begin with.

EA CFO Blake Jorgensen appeared at a conference in 2017 following the cancellation of Visceral Games' action-adventure Star Wars title and the closure of the studio to explain that the decision was made in part because that type of game was no longer trending with players.

"As we kept reviewing the game, it continued to look like a much more linear game [which] people don't like as much today as they did five years ago or ten years ago," Jorgensen said. He went on to say that the company feared that it wouldn't make any money off of a linear game. "You gotta cut the bridge when you realize you can't make a lot of money on something."

It seems Activision and Treyarch took a similar approach with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, ditching the campaign for a broader experience involving three modes that you can play infinitely.

As Treyarch co-head Dan Bunting explained to Polygon, "[Black Ops 4] is built to be expandable, adaptable, [and] it's going to evolve over time. We've gone into this knowing that we're making a game that can be played with friends across the board and going to be played for a long time to come."

There might still be some Call of Duty fans who feel like Black Ops 4 isn't a full game without a traditional story. If you've gone through the Specialist Missions and still don't think it's enough, Activision has also released a series of comic books for free! You can read all the issues released thus far here.

Like the Specialist Missions, these comics also expand on the backstory of each Specialist in the game. The Black Ops 4 comic isn't an afterthought either. Activision has recruited well-known comics writers such as Greg Rucka and Chris Roberson as well as artists Eric Wilkerson and Adam Hughes to pen and draw each issue.

Reviewing the first five issues, Kotaku called the series "pretty great," explaining that it's a worthwhile read to better understand the Specialists.

"A one-shot issue doesn't give the artist and writer teams much time to tell you about a character, but these Black Ops 4 comics mostly provide a good piece of the character's backstory to make you care or at least understand them," Kotaku's S.E. Doster said in her write-up.

There's one last thing to consider: there's no reason Call of Duty has to compete in the single-player market in the first place, especially if there are already dedicated single-player shooters that emphasize storytelling. Take Bethesda's impressive lineup of single-player shooters. Wolfenstein, Doom, and Prey all feature campaign modes that tell worthwhile stories with their own unique styles. These games don't need to be formulaic because they don't emphasize multiplayer gaming. Instead, resources go almost completely to getting the campaign right.

Call of Duty, on the other hand, hasn't made much of an effort to tell great stories in the last few years, opting instead to grow its multiplayer component, making it the star of each new installment. It's clear with Black Ops 4 that, while there's certainly market for great single-player shooters, Call of Duty isn't all that interested in chasing it. Instead, Call of Duty should focus on what it does well and what it's best known for.

With Black Ops 4, Call of Duty is doing just that: improving its multiplayer with a polished battle royale mode that will keep it at the top of the multiplayer shooter food chain.