Activision reveals new details on Call of Duty: Mobile Battle Royale mode

Activision has dropped a large blog post announcing a ton of details on the Battle Royale mode for the upcoming free to play Call of Duty: Mobile game.

Here’s the details:

Overview

We couldn’t be more excited today to show you a first glimpse into the second major mode of Call of Duty®: Mobile – Battle Royale. This is a unique take on the genre, custom-built for mobile with Call of Duty®’s signature gameplay, that thrusts the adrenaline-pumping survival mode into a colossal map that features iconic locations from across the Call of Duty universe.

It’s standalone from other Battle Royale experiences in Call of Duty. So, those familar Call of Duty®:Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode may find some familiarity, but ultimately this experience is unique to Call of Duty®: Mobile. So prepare for some thrilling and exciting gameplay on the go as you deploy, scavenge and survive in any way you can.

Call of Duty®: Mobile – Battle Royale: Overall intel:

    * Up to 100 total rivals on a large-scale, sprawling Battle Royale map.

    * Single, Two-person, or Four-person playlists are currently being playtested, so you can choose a match and play individually, as part of a pair, or as a team of four.

    * Choose from one of six initial classes, each with their own ability and skill.

    * The mode features similar rules to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout map; drop in from above, find weapons and gear, survive on the ground, and eliminate all to win!

    * Reviving teammates introduces a dog tag retrieval, with successfully-healed friends dropping in from a cargo plane once they are healed.

    * The game can be played in either a third or first-person perspective, which you decide on before the match begins.

    * The massive map features a wide variety of new territory to explore, as well over a dozen settings from previous Call of Dutytitles, including Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty®: Black Ops, and Call of Duty®: Black Ops II.

Note Call of Duty®: Mobile is still early in development and testing, so information is subject to change.

When you first begin Battle Royale, you’re presented with a quick overview detailing the important game details, designed to get you into the action as quickly as possible, but with an overall understanding of the actions to undertake and the threats to face.

Here’s what to expect: 

Prior to each match, you’re able to pick from a variety of Loadout elements, including the choosing of your Class, camos, and skins.

Battle Royale Preparation

Before each match, you can quickly head to the deployment zone, or take a moment to make some adjustments and learn the following onboarding information:

Basic Actions

There are six basic actions to undertake as a Battle Royale match occurs:

Choose Class: Firstly, you pick the class you want to play as; each with a an Ability and Class Skill designed to match your style of play.

Parachuting: Secondly, as the match begins, you and up to 100 other rivals utilize a wingsuit, dropping out of an aircraft and steering toward a favored part of the sprawling Battle Royale map, before pulling the ripcord and landing by parachute.

Searching: Next, the scavenging begins! Without equipment or armaments, you need to find items dotting about the map, usually in buildings or supply caches. When you’re tooled up sufficiently, it’s time to engage. Or hide.

Move Fast & Hide: It’s usually recommended to push to a relatively-safe area, encroaching on a building and positioning yourself out of view of any rivals. Then you can play an offensive or defensive game, depending on the variables of the match in question.

Revive Teammate: If you’re playing Duos or Quads, expect to dash to the aid of a fallen friend; reviving them if they’ve been neutralized by a foe; naturally you need to keep your wits about you so you aren’t tagged too!

Fight: Obviously, you’re spending the rest of the match battling for supremacy of the map, aiming to be the last person standing. Use all methods to stay alive until the end of the game!

Control

We’ve previously detailed the various control methods and how they translated to mobile devices. During Battle Royale, some additional control functionality unique to the mode is added. You can access the Backpack (allowing access to health, armor, and other equipment) as well as your class skill. Furthermore, you’re taught the more ubiquitous maneuvers, such as crouching and going prone, jumping and mantling over objects, and marking a position on the Battle Royale map. The straightforward access to these control elements further adds to the ease of movement during gameplay.

Classes

Whether you’re on a team or not, you now choose a particular Class of character from the initial six on offer. Each class brings a set of particular talents to the combat zone. Choose from:

            Defender: With the ability to place a deformable Transform Shield, this class also is Reinforced, raising resistance to all damage except bullets.

            Mechanic: Able to call an EMP Drone to create electro-magnetic interference on hostile forces, this class also features the Engineer ability, granting augmented sight to vehicles, hostile traps, and other equipment.

            Scout: Utilizing the Sensor Dart that can view hostile positions in the immediate area of the radar map, this class also benefits from the Tracker ability; allowing you to see fresh footprints of hostiles.

            Clown: A master of distraction and friend of the undead, this class has a Toy Bomb to detonate, summoning zombies that only attack hostiles near to them; due in part to the Clown having the Anti-Zombie ability, which reduces the zombies’ aggression distance.

            Medic: This class can place a Medical Station that continuously heals the Medic and associated allies in the immediate vicinity. In addition, the Master Healer ability allows a Medic to heal more quickly, and reduces the time it takes to revive teammates.

            Ninja: Lastly, this clandestine class has a Grapple Gun that fires a hook, allowing you to propel yourself up and onto target buildings or across the landscape at speed. Movement is quiet too, due to this class having the Dead Silence ability.

Reviving

Before you drop, you receive instructions on the revival of teammates: If a friend is taken out, they leave a dog tag behind. Move to and pick up this dog tag, and the teammate can be revived, which is attempted using the revive button. If you’re not interrupted during the revival, the teammate can rejoin the fray. This doesn’t happen immediately; they appear on a plane and drop back onto the battlefield.

Loadout Menu

With your onboarding complete, you can make changes in the Battle Royale loadout menu, allowing you to invite friends, switch character classes, choose your favorite Weapon Camos, Item Skins, and Vehicle Skins, make adjustments to your knife, wingsuit, and parachute, choose emojis, and make a number of other adjustments before the game begins.

Camera Type

Once you’ve completed the debriefing, you’re able to pick the perspective of the camera: Choose either First-Person Perspective (FPP) or Third-Person Perspective (TPP). As you’d expect, FPP view shows your weapon, but not your character, and is the viewpoint you’re used to from Call of Duty games. However, TPP shows your entire character, with the camera behind you a few feet away; similar to the viewpoint when you’re driving a vehicle in Blackout.

Naturally, as players can have a TPP have a slight advantage (they can peer around corners without physically having to step out of cover), games will be matched to the camera type you choose (so there aren’t current plans to have TPP and FPP together in the same game).

One, Two, or Four-Player Teams

Currently, there are three Battle Royale game playlists being tested: There’s single-player (everyone for themselves!), two-person (teams of two), and quartets (teams of four). While you’re waiting on the map for the game to begin, you can make some last-minute changes (switching classes, for example), before deployment begins!

Welcome to Battle Royale!

Upon landing, you’ve moments to seek cover, gather gear, and tackle enemies across a massive environment of locations both familiar and new.

Battle Royale Begins: A Descent into Chaos

As the 100 rivals start to descend from transport aircraft high above the battlefield, you’re able to time your drop, steering to a preferred area of the map using your wingsuit and parachute, hoping your teammates are in the vicinity and enemies are sparse until you’re tooled up with preferred weapons, and ready to fight. Then it’s a fight until you (or your team) are the only ones standing!

Upon landing, you initially need to scramble and loot the area for armaments, health kits, armor, ammo, weapon attachments, and avoid any roaming zombies as well as other rivals. The game auto-gathers the best equipment for you, but you’re still able to grab and utilize your preferred items easily. Doors are auto-opened when you step to them, and you can smash through windows and mantle using the jump button, climb ladders, and (if you have it) utilize the Grapple Hook, as you’d expect.

Expect intermittent supply crates dropped from above, as well as beacons marking the location of Class Upgrade items, augmenting your particular set of skills, with some only becoming accessible once the instructions on the cache are completed. This usually involves the clearing of the immediate area of zombies. Expect areas with high-value equipment to be swarming with foes en route to claim these advantages too, meaning forethought and planning is needed to ensure you’re not overrun by enemies, all intent on gathering these advantages for themselves.

Faster deployment around the map plays an important role in Battle Royale too, with four different controllable vehicles currently accessible:

    ATV: A two-person quad-bike with speed but little protection.

    Light Helicopter: With room for three including the pilot, allowing you to rain down fire from above.

    SUV: An armored troop carrier with room for four, offering more ponderous mobility, but the extra protection compared to the ATV.

    Tactical Raft: Take to the waters (including an ocean and rivers) in this fast boat, but watch for snipers!

As the game progresses, the circle collapses, forcing you to a smaller and smaller area of the map on a collision course with the enemy. As time and territory whittles down, it becomes increasingly important to know the terrain, and how to best utilize it in the remaining moments of a match.

Call of Duty®: Mobile introduces a third-person perspective during Battle Royale matches; though the ubiquitous first-person viewpoint is also a choice.

Battle Royale: Navigating the Map

The map itself offers a large variety of topography to fight through, including all-new hills, mesas, settlements, rivers, and bridges, as well as a host of familiar locations from previous Call of Duty titles dotted throughout the environment. Though this isn’t the complete list of locations, expect the map to include the following settings:

            Countdown: The hangars and missile silos; elements from the map that appeared in Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare.

            Crash: The war-torn settlement with a downed helicopter in the middle, from Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare.

            Diner: The infamous eatery from Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

            Estate: The hilltop house and grounds, inspired by the map in from Call of Duty®: Modern Warfare 2.

Farm: The foreboding rural nightmare from Zombies Survival mode, from Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

            Firing Range: The military practice facility, versions of which were seen throughout the from Call of Duty®: Black Opsfranchise.

            Killhouse: The small, symmetrical warehouse of mayhem from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

            Launch: The cosmodrome and launch pad from Call of Duty®: Black Ops.

Overgrown: A large, rural farm and fields from Call of Duty 4®: Modern Warfare.

            Nuketown: The iconic suburbs with a subterranean secret, as seen in all the Call of Duty®: Black Ops releases.

            Pipeline: The grimy and overgrown railyard from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

            Seaside: The coastal multiplayer map originally from Call of Duty 4: Black Ops 4.

            Shipment: The crammed cargo docks from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

            Standoff: The border town map from Call of Duty®: Black Ops II.

Fight your way through environments that span the Call of Duty series, with Battle Royale map locations from Modern Warfare and Black Ops.

Other Modes

Battle Royale is one mode to play as part of the entire Call of Duty: Mobile gaming experience. Consult previous Activision Games Blog posts to discover more about the menus, loadouts, characters, and multiplayer maps, and look for further information in the coming weeks.

Pre-Registration is Open!

Pre-registration for Call of Duty: Mobile is now open in select regions, including North America, South America, Europe, and other territories. Sign up and pre-register for Call of Duty: Mobile on Android and iOS at www.callofduty.com/mobile to receive all the latest game updates, information, and access to the public beta available soon in select regions. In addition, pre-registration is also open in China; go to codm.qq.com to sign up within this region.

The first limited-scale closed Beta test began recently in India, and a regional Beta test will kick off soon in Australia, with more territories coming online in the coming months.

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