As a continuation of the Black Ops subseries, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 both benefits from and is limited by its past. All three of its major modes--multiplayer, Zombies, and the new battle royale mode Blackout--pull from and build upon previous games. Multiplayer is largely successful in its mix of old and new, while Zombies struggles more with dated elements. Blackout, though, strikes an excellent balance, putting a clever Call of Duty spin on a genre entirely new to the series.
While Black Ops 4 doesn't have a traditional single-player campaign, it does have a helpful set of character-focused tutorial missions. Called Specialist HQ, it introduces you to each of the 10 multiplayer Specialists one by one, taking you through their unique abilities and a practice multiplayer match. It does have a bit of a story and some gorgeous (and gory) cutscenes threading each mission together, but it's all in service of getting you acquainted with the new Specialist mechanics--which is well worth the three or so hours it takes, since some of those mechanics appear in Blackout as well. One mission even weaves in a bit of general Zombies training, an unexpected but welcome touch that helps make the largely separate modes feel a little more cohesive.
Multiplayer
Multiplayer is the most straightforward of the modes, and Black Ops 4 attempts to be more tactical than previous entries. The wall-running and thrust-jumping of Black Ops 3 is gone, replaced with weighty, grounded movement, and healing is now manual and on a cooldown timer. The combination forces you to be more thoughtful about your positioning, since you can't just jet and dodge enemy fire until your health regenerates--you need to make sure you have adequate cover and time to heal yourself in your immediate vicinity. This encourages a slightly slower, more cautious pace on an individual level, and it's refreshing to play it smart instead of just fast. But time-to-kill is still low and respawning still near-instant, ensuring that matches don't stagnate.
The more tactical feel extends to the Specialists, which build upon those introduced in Black Ops 3. Each has a unique weapon and equipment with a specific combat focus, like area control or high damage output. Each Specialist's weapon is tied to a longer cooldown and functions as a superpowered attack (or defensive ability, in some cases), while their equipment varies from a special grenade to trip mines and other gear with a clear strategic purpose. This includes roles other than offensive ones--there's even a pseudo-healer Specialist, Crash--and it's a change that gives multiplayer more variety.
Certain Specialists and strategies are more useful in some game types than others, though. Area control is best for objective-based modes like Domination, for example, and far less effective in the more scattered Team Deathmatch. Generally, your choice of Specialist and your team's composition won't matter in any mode if you aren't skilled in basic shooting and positioning, even if you're in a more defensive or supporting role. This means you can play selfishly and still emerge victorious, which works well for those of us who often solo queue and would rather not risk trying to communicate with randoms. But it can also make playing support-focused Specialists less rewarding if you aren't working as a team, since your efforts are useless if your teammates don't take advantage of them. It's a surprisingly good balance overall, though, giving you the flexibility to be only as tactical as you want or are able to be and enjoy the match regardless.
The map design, too, facilitates that flexibility. Each map has areas perfect for different Specialists to take advantage of, like blind corners where Nomad's trip mines can take enemies by surprise or high ceilings where Recon can shoot and hide his Sensor Dart that reveals enemies on your radar. But the long and narrow three-lane structure each map is built on is a strong foundation for more traditional shooting as well, with both long sightlines good for sniper and tactical rifles and tight spaces for close-range automatic weapons.
The Specialist strategies are best showcased in the new Control, an objective-based mode in which each team, one attacking and one defending, shares 25 lives. You win by either exhausting all of the enemy team's lives or gaining or maintaining control of the two objectives. A defensive Specialist like Torque, who has Razor Wire perfect for placement under windows and a Barricade "weapon" for extra cover, is a great option if you're trying to hold an objective, for example. An offensive Specialist, on the other hand, can aim to wipe out the enemy team.
Zombies
Black Ops 4's Zombies is as broad as it is deep, with two separate storylines across three maps (or four if you have the Black Ops pass included in the game's special editions). The first two, IX and Voyage of Despair, are part of the brand-new Chaos story, while Blood of the Dead and Classified round out the selection of maps to make up the returning Aether story. All of them follow the familiar Zombies formula--fighting waves of the undead, saving money to access better weapons and new areas, and uncovering wacky secrets and puzzles along the way--but each has its own quirks that take time and effort to discover.
The Chaos maps are strong aesthetically, with rich level design and clever puzzles to match--draining water that has seeped into the Titanic's depths so you don't drown while searching for other secrets, for example. Like previous Zombies maps, a lot of the fun comes from figuring out how the map ticks while also trying not to die, and both IX and Voyage of Despair have the complex layouts that lend themselves to thorough yet hectic exploration. Voyage is a personal favorite, with narrow, creepy hallways and presumably drowned zombies that have water gushing from their heads.
On the Aether side, Blood of the Dead is based on Black Ops 2's Mob of the Dead, while Classified is a reimagination of Black Ops' Five. Although they're definitely familiar, there are still surprises to entertain returning players--some puzzles don't unlock what you expect them to unlock, for example. However, the Ultimus crew hasn't aged particularly well, even considering that each of them is stereotyped to the extreme. The jokes just don't land anymore, especially Takeo's overdone Japanese accent where Ls are replaced with Rs at every opportunity. In Blood of the Dead it's distracting, but in Classified, lines about the Emperor and eating sushi are just plain offensive. You'll also hear these same lines every time you start a new run, which doesn't help.
On top of the already hefty amount of Zombies content, Black Ops 4 introduces a new mode of fighting the undead, Rush. It's a much faster-paced version of Zombies where you don't have to do any thinking or puzzle-solving; you're just there to kill them horde-style. There's no money, so you don't need to save up to buy a weapon or unlock a door. You're instead told which area will have the next Rush wave, and you're directed from room to room as you go. It's too intense to be a tutorial, per se, but it's a great way to familiarize yourself with the map, test weapons, and plan where to go next if you get stuck in Classic mode.
Blackout
The third and most exciting of Black Ops 4's three main sections is, of course, Blackout. Like other battle royale games, Call of Duty's take puts 100 players on one map with the goal of being the last person or squad standing, and a collapsing circle of death forces you in closer and closer proximity. It's unlike anything Call of Duty has done before, and slight alterations to its mechanics, like the addition of bullet drop on some weapons, help it adapt to the very different gameplay style.
Brilliantly, experience in both multiplayer and Zombies benefits you in Blackout. Perks and Specialist equipment can be looted during a match, and knowing how to both use and counter them can give you an advantage. There are also zombie-infested areas that offer powerful loot at the risk of attracting human players to your position, and that PvE twist in particular helps distinguish Blackout from the likes of PUBG. A successful Blackout round can last over 20 minutes, so if you're impatient or more used to Call of Duty's shorter multiplayer formats, seeking out zombies and causing a ruckus mid-match is a great way to see more action.
The map itself is also distinctly Call of Duty, filled with references to previous games, including the fan favorite Nuketown. Vibrant and varied design makes each region stand out from the next, and the map as a whole is easy to navigate as a result. That in turn facilitates the strategic movement and positioning necessary to succeed; it's easy to pivot if a lot of other people are nearby, for example, if you know where you are in relation to the next-best loot area.
The combination of Call of Duty-specific mechanics with PUBG-style health, loot, and shooting systems is executed well, with quality-of-life improvements to UI--notably, you can quick-equip weapon attachments without going into your menu. The twists are balanced, too, and the Specialist equipment in particular doesn't make things feel unfair. Like in multiplayer, you can ignore anything you don't want to bother with, and survival ultimately comes down to your situational awareness, your skill with various weapons, and a bit of luck with looting and the circle. That makes victory feel earned and, as a result, immensely gratifying--Blackout definitely captures the tense, shaky excitement that makes battle royale such a popular genre.
Black Ops 4 isn't short on content, and its three main modes are substantial. Multiplayer introduces more tactical mechanics without forcing you into them, and it largely strikes a good balance. Zombies has multiple deep, secret-filled maps to explore, though its returning characters don't hold up and prove distracting. Finally, Blackout pushes Call of Duty in an entirely new direction, making use of aspects from both multiplayer and Zombies for a take on the battle royale genre that stands on its own. Sure, there isn't a traditional single-player campaign, but with the depth and breadth of what is there, Black Ops 4 doesn't need it.
What truly distinguishes SoulCalibur from its genre contemporaries is a pervading sense of adventure. It tells a grand tale of knights and ninjas, axe-wielding goliaths and pirate warriors, all struggling over mythical weapons of good and evil. It accents this with a rousing orchestral score and grandiose narrations about entwined destinies and inescapable fates. Sure, deep and rewarding mechanics are at the heart of every good fighting game--and SoulCalibur VI certainly has that--but for this series, adventure has always been the soul.
That spirit of adventure is most evident in SoulCalibur VI's two story modes. Libra of Souls is the meatier of the two and takes inspiration from SoulCalibur II's beloved Weapon Master Mode. It's part fighting game, part role-playing game, part Dungeons & Dragons campaign; you create and customize your own unique fighter using options that, while serviceable, aren't nearly as robust as the ones in Bandai Namco's other fighter, Tekken 7. From there you embark on a journey that will take you across the world, and along the way you'll cross paths--and swords--with both named characters and generically named bit-parters.
Libra of Souls tells its story primarily through text, but it's all surprisingly engaging, with dialogue and descriptions setting the stage for the inevitable fight and giving even its throwaway opponents a bit of flavour. The story's conceit for making you travel around the world is that you're "malfested" with an evil energy and must absorb Astral Fissures to stay alive. Although you're ushered between main quest missions, various side-quests pop up around you, with NPCs asking for a hand solving their problems. Naturally, the solution each time is a sword-swinging contest, but the game does a valiant job of world building along the way to give texture to its fantasy universe. You'll learn that Ceylon is a major producer of cinnamon, which is favoured by royalty and thus very precious, and that hamlets are being decimated by a rampaging Azure Knight with a thirst for souls. You'll meet a would-be entrepreneur who, while affable, is mostly after handouts; a weaponsmith who is looking to impress the royal family to win a contract; and a priestess who doubts her abilities, among others.
Completing these missions rewards you with experience that levels you up, and this is where the RPG hooks are strongest. As you grow, you'll be able to use stronger weapons that have different visual styles and properties. Enemies also become hardier and, on top of that, special battle conditions spice up fights. These may make one type of attack more effective while decreasing the strength of others, thus forcing you to diversify your skillset within the battle system. Another wrinkle to the RPG mechanics is the ability to select a food item to take into battle. These bestow bonuses such as increased counter damage, a boost to health at the start of a new round, or extra experience for a win, to name a few. If you'd rather let someone else do the dirty work, you can visit the Mercenaries Guild and hire a fighter, outfit them with a weapon and food, then send them into battle. At best the AI will secure a victory; at worst they'll knock off some health from the enemy before you step in.
There are also little touches in Libra of Souls that reinforce the idea that you're a wandering warrior on an epic journey. One of them is an indicator at the top of the world map that ticks down the years as you progress, establishing a passage of time as you bounce between locations and fights in rapid succession. Another is the decision-making moments, some of which will simply dictate how you act towards a character, while others will weigh your soul towards good or evil, impact the story, and decide how the ending battle plays out. The eventual consequence of your actions is small, but it's a neat way to give you a tiny bit of authorship in the story.
The main issue with Libra of Souls is the ratio of storytelling to actual gameplay. The mode is very text-heavy, which would be less of a problem if its battles weren't so quick. In the hands of a capable fighting game player, many enemies can be dispatched within as little as 10 seconds, which means time spent in Libra of Souls is heavily skewed toward reading over fighting. And although the loading screens before and after battles are quite short, they can become increasingly tedious. The mode is also lacking in variety, so beyond the occasional battle condition, it does very little to keep you on your toes. For the most part, applying an aggressive strategy will see you emerge victorious.
The second mode, Soul Chronicles, is a more typical take on a fighting game story but is still expansive and has an interesting approach to laying out its narrative. It features a main story that chronicles what happens with the legendary Soul Edge but supplements this with 19 character-specific campaigns, drilling down on what they're doing while the broader story takes place. Although they're heavily reliant on static artwork, they're fully voiced and the artwork itself has an eye-catching, sketch-like style. There's a microcosm of Libra of Souls' issues here too, though, as battles can be over in the blink of an eye, and that means more hitting buttons to advance text.
Nevertheless, Libra of Souls and Soul Chronicle make for a satisfying single-player offering, with the former lasting upwards of eight hours and the latter taking around four. Idiosyncrasies aside, both give you plenty to do and provide a comprehensive, engrossing story throughout. By the time it's over, you'll have travelled the world, met a variety of colorful characters, and fought all manner of strange creatures. Quite the adventure.
SoulCalibur VI doesn't demand hours of study and experimentation ... you can pick up a controller and feel like you're competent in no time
The beauty of SoulCalibur's gameplay is its simplicity, and in that respect SoulCalibur VI is a bit like rock-paper-scissors. At its most superficial, the rules of engagement are simple and the pace of battles means decision-making is based on instinct as much as considered tactics and being reactive. Admittedly, the same can be said of most fighting games, but unlike them SoulCalibur VI doesn't demand hours of study and experimentation to do this; you can pick up a controller and feel like you're competent in no time. Although there are complicated systems and techniques to consider, an inability to interact with them doesn't loom over you. Before long vertical attacks will reveal themselves as powerful but slow, you'll quickly realise that horizontal attacks interrupt sidesteps and are a safe way to apply pressure, and kicks are a nice balance of the two but with limited range. It takes little time to internalize those fundamentals, and so their intricacies become apparent quicker than in most fighting games. Throw in blocking and movement, both of which are intuitive, and the pick-up-and-play factor becomes a key strength of SoulCalibur VI.
The surface simplicity belies more complex systems beneath, and SoulCalibur VI is mechanically dense. It layers systems from throughout the series on top of each other so even veterans will need to examine the individual pieces and figure out how they fit together. Although each character has a relatively limited range of attacks, the eight-way run movement lets you modify them. Attacks also land at different heights--high, mid, and low--and in turn blocking becomes a three-tiered system. More confident players can react to an attack by executing a last-second Guard Impact to repel and leave their opponent open, but a staggered player can retaliate with a Reversal Impact--a reversal reversal.
From there it only gets more complicated. Reversal Edge is a special stance that will counter incoming attacks at any height. It's executed with a single button and the longer it's held the more attacks it can absorb. This makes defending against an onslaught of attacks really easy, but the ease of execution means it also steps on the toes of the more skill-based Guard Impact. Reversal Edge seems to be aimed at casual players as, while a successful Guard Impact places the initiator in a more advantageous position, Reversal Edge establishes a neutral playfield by initiating a clash. Here the action slows, the camera swoops in close, and the two fighters effectively bet on what the other player will do and counter it. This is a useful way to create some breathing room when being smothered, but the guessing game leads to a feeling of randomness that can be frustrating. The workaround here is to land an unblockable break attack to stop a Reversal Edge.
Beyond that there are Critical Edges, which are the game's equivalent of super moves. These are governed by the Soul Gauge, which is built up by attacking, defending, and taking damage. Once one level is attained, it can be spent on executing an incredibly powerful and outlandish cinematic attack. A Soul Gauge can also be spent on a Soul Charge, a comeback state of sorts that opens a separate set of moves up for a character to use, powers up normal attacks, and makes them cause damage to blocking opponents for a brief period.
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Those are just a few of the systems in SoulCalibur VI, so for those that want to become students of the game, it offers plenty to learn. However, at times it can also feel needlessly complex. This is likely a symptom of creating a collection of systems that give the hardcore fighting game players the depth they crave while also enabling casual players to stand their ground against them. On paper that might seem like a good approach, but the end result is a construction that is at odds with itself, as if built out of both K-Nex and Lego--the simpler parts undermine the complex ones, and although it works, it's inelegant. A good player with an understanding of all the systems will almost always triumph over someone only making use of the basic ones, so the biggest issue this superfluousness presents is that it makes the path from casual to expert a little less appealing to walk. That complexity is overwhelming when it doesn't need to be, and if there are simpler and easier options there's less incentive to dig beneath the surface.
SoulCalibur VI is a fighting game that's easy to recommend. Like all the best titles in the genre, it has a low barrier to entry and high skill ceiling. For those looking to get in a few games with friends it's welcoming and immediately enjoyable. For those committed to ploughing the depths of its systems to get tournament ready, it has plenty to unpack and understand. Better still, those that want to play alone will find SoulCalibur VI has some of the most substantial single-player content in any fighting game today.
At the time of writing, SoulCalibur VI's online servers aren't live. GameSpot will test the game post-release and update this review with an assessment of its online performance.
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