Details on Call of Duty: Black Ops III leaked Friday ahead of the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC shooter’s planned official reveal on Sunday. There’s some extremely surprising news included. Not only is there a planned beta, a first for the Call of Duty series, but the game is also adding co-op support to the campaign.
An image for Call of Duty: Black Ops III leaked out on Reddit showing the game’s November 6 release date along with surprising news that there will be a beta. Naturally, the only way to get into the beta is to pre-order.
Later, a second image of a GameStop promotional display cropped up on Kotaku showing the exact same date and pre-order beta access.
Seemingly every Call of Duty release has been accompanied by rumors and fake sign-ups for betas. It’s a nice change of pace for the series to actually have a beta to fix multiplayer issues prior to the release of Black Ops III .
The November 6 release is also a bit surprising as that is not your typical Tuesday release. Instead, Black Ops III will launch on Friday. I anticipate there to be a huge uptick in vacation day requests with employers for that day.
A second set of images leaked out through another Reddit user not long after the first. These images included the first gameplay image along with details on the campaign, multiplayer, and all-new Zombies mode.
The big surprise for the campaign is that it will support up to four players playing co-operatively. There’s nothing mentioned about whether this will be online only though or if there will be some form of support for local co-op.
Call of Duty Campaign like nothing before.
Co-Op Campaign
Treyarch elevates the Call of Duty social gaming experience by delivering a campaign with the ability to play cooperatively with up to four players online, using same battle-tested network infrastructure and social systems that support the world-class Multiplayer and Zombies game modes.
Cinematic Arena-Style Play
Designed for co-op and re-playability, players encounter all the epic cinematic gameplay moments Call of Duty is known for delivering as well as new open area arena-style gameplay elements designed to allow players to approach the game with a different strategy each time the play.
Character Progression:
And now, every player is completely customizable: from weapons and loadouts, to abilities and outfits, all with full progression systems and a personalized armory to show accomplishments, providing a constantly-evolving campaign experience.
Call of Duty: Blacks Ops III does not use the Exo Suits from Advanced Warfare . However, it appears that the cybernetically enhanced super soldiers will keep the same movement system with thrust jumps, slides, and mantling.
Prepare for a leveled-up multiplayer
New movement system:
With Black Ops III, Treyarch premieres a new momentum-based chained-movement system, allowing players to fluidly move through the environment with finesse, using controlled thrust jumps, slides, and mantling abilities in a multitude of combinations, all while maintaining complete control over your weapon at all times.
Tailored Map Design
Maps are designed from the ground-up for the new movement system. allowing players to be successful with traditional movement, as well as advanced tactics and maneuvers.
Specialist Characters:
Black Ops III multiplayer also introduces the new Specialist character system, which allows players to rank up and master each specific character’s battle-hardened capabilities and weapons. With this addition to Traditional and Weapons XP progressions systems, Black Ops III multiplayer gives players three different ways to rank up.
Unsurprisingly, Zombies will return. The details on the popular co-op mode are very light, but Treyarch is promising an all new narrative versus a continuation of the plot from previous Black Ops titles.
Fight the Undead in an all-new horror story
All-new Narrative
No Treyarch title would be complete without its signature Zombies offering – a full-game experience with its own distinct storyline right out of the box.
XP Progression System
Black Ops III Zombies is the most immersive and ambitious Call of Duty Zombies to date, with a full XP-based progression system for players that adds depth and re-playability to engaging gameplay Zombies fans have come to expect.
All of this comes after the teaser trailer that provided the setup for Black Ops III . Releases to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the PC are a given. There are rumors that Activision will employ a separate studio from Treyarch to port the game to the PS3 and Xbox 360.
What do you think of these details from Call of Duty: Black Ops III ? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Reddit]
[H/T: Charlie Intel ]