Since Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 focuses entirely on multiplayer, gamers need to master its core competitive modes. There’s some scant single-player content available via a few solo missions in Specialists HQ to introduce neophytes to its diversity of tactical weapons, play-styles, and cooldown abilities, but most of the time spent learning the game in action is left it up to the player, tackling its modes with friends and strangers, trying to survive, and keeping their career K/D ratio as balanced as possible.
Luckily, Black Ops 4 is designed to be somewhat forgiving to newcomers, and has even leveraged some reliable mechanics from other successful multiplayer games in its offerings. Killstreak abilities have been a series mainstay for years, and they return as meaningfully overpowered bonuses in the new game’s core modes (although they are known as “Scorestreaks” this time around), along with several other Call of Duty favorites, including the increasingly absurd and wonderful Zombies mode. This means that players new to the series should still recognize some common elements to shooters but, unfortunately, the eight primary multiplayer modes lack any kind of active front-loaded tutorial.
Related: Black Ops 4 Beginners Guide: How to Play (& Win) in Zombies Mode
This guide aims to correct that. Read on for a quick look at the multiple competitive modes and get an early upper hand in Black Ops 4, inclusive of a few insights to help new players make smart decisions in their first hours with the game.
Black Ops 4's Team Deathmatch
Players: 10 – 12
For many gamers, good old Team Deathmatch remains the main Black Ops 4 draw. It’s quick, nasty, and easy to grasp, featuring the full slew of specialist operatives to control as each team attempts to hit the score limit first, (typically 75 points) at one point per kill.
Teams of 6v6 represent the ideal scenario, though it’s not uncommon for players to quit Team Deathmatch matches early if the game’s not going in their favor. As a side note: it’s never really worth quitting early, as playing through losing matches still accrues experience, which levels up your character up to gain unlocks, perks, weapon mods, and Call of Duty’s constantly evolving smorgasbord of multiple experience and achievement paths.
Of all of Black Ops 4’s modes, Team Deathmatch is the easiest to understand, and is perfect when you don’t have the time and attention to bring to a more involved rule set. Communicating tactics to teammates is less crucial to success, prompting players to just run around racking up those Scorestreaks and dispensing with most big-brain meta-strategies.
Black Ops 4's Domination
Players: 8 – 10
Similar to Team Deathmatch, Domination hearkens back to some of the earliest multiplayer shooters. You’re given three control points on each map, each of which are captured by standing on a designated area for a set amount of time. More teammates on the point at once = faster captures. Defending players standing on the point at the same time as attackers can contest it, but the point's active radius is so small that there aren’t many surprise interruptions of this nature (those happen more often in Control matches). In other words, if an enemy’s on the point with you, one of you will probably be dead shortly thereafter.
Each team is given a Capture Point closer to their spawn, with the third one resting in between serving as the usual tie-breaker. A team’s first goal is often to grab their nearest Capture Point, then spend the bulk of the match fighting over point B, but a surprise capture of A or C can be a nice interruption when a team’s attention is fixated elsewhere.
An important thing to note about Domination, which is different from some other multiplayer shooters, is that recapturing a partially-completed point requires that defenders be standing on it. If an attacking enemy half-captures point B, but then gets killed before completion, you or a teammate will have to stand on the point to wind back the gauge on that partial capture. Keep that in mind, as ignoring a partially-captured point only primes it for an enemy to sneak up later and complete its last ticks when no one’s looking.
Black Ops 4's Free For All
Players: 6 – 8
Free For All is a king of the hill/lone wolf deathmatch mode. A pure adrenaline rush where no teammates exist, and skill and situational awareness are the best survival tools. Rolling in Black Ops 4’s other features and abilities makes Free For All a dynamic deathmatch experience, where it’s usually best to target and take out the current reigning leader on the scoreboard and curb their chance at Scorestreaks.
Free For All has a lower player count than most any other mode, which at least serves to make the span of its 14 maps feel larger as a result, since their layout doesn't change between modes. There's also less close-quarters fighting, and establishing a strong sniper presence is tricky to fortify without the trusty backup of effective teammates. If sniping is your preference, though, Ruin's Grapple Gun equipment can help players make a hasty exit, and Nomad's Mesh Mines can protect him from backstabbers (at least once).
Black Ops 4's Search and Destroy
Players: 8 – 10
A bit more hardcore and stakes-raising than some other Black Ops 4 game types, Search and Destroy makes its return as an objective-based mode, where each attacking team picks up a bomb and needs to bring and prime it at one of two target locations. Defending teams can defuse an active bomb, which automatically completes the round in their favor.
The winning team commands the board with the best of 8 games, but most early matches tend to be on the short side, with kills coming in quickly and no respawns allowed, making rounds usually last no longer than a minute or so. Constant communication is key, and note that if you walk over the bomb near your spawn you automatically take hold of it. Teammates holding the bomb will be marked with a note and icon so they can be easily tracked on your HUD.
Page 2 of 2: Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, Control, and Heist
Black Ops 4's Kill Confirmed
Players: 10 – 12
This mode is essentially a form of extended Team Deathmatch, requiring players to pick up dropped dog tag icons to increase their team’s actual score. Kill Confirmed has been around Call of Duty for a while now, but the ability to double-pick specialists here and incorporate their duplicated abilities into the game makes Black Ops 4’s version all the more interesting (two active K-9 Units at once are especially frightening for the enemy team).
Additionally, the strategies invoked in Kill Confirmed often require a little more thought and coordination that Team Deathmatch. Considering that dog tags are easy to spot from a distance, it can be in a player's best interest to leave a single unclaimed set on the ground as a honeytrap. Keeping in a connected group is often what separates winning and losing teams, since fellow teammates can make sure to quickly retrieve dog tags before the enemy can make a score.
Kill Confirmed generally involves less choke-point control and requires players to keep on the move, so there’s less of an emphasis on camping, sniping, and locking down bottlenecks, which is something to keep in mind when selecting the right specialist for the job. A sniper killing a player from fifty yards still needs to pick up those distant tags to be a benefit to their team.
Black Ops 4's Hardpoint
Players: 8 – 10
Hardpoint returns to Call of Duty with its intense objective-based scrimmage. Unlike Domination or Control, the capture point in this mode moves predictably around the map, and players score by standing in a relatively large designated area. One second on the Hardpoint is equal to one point for the team.
Unlike other capture point modes, Hardpoint requires a few projected strategies. Is it worth bearing down on a near-depleted Hardpoin, or better to move on to the next one and set up defenses accordingly? With a reasonable lead, it might be strategically wise to allow the other team to score a few points and prevent undue losses and enemy ability/Scorestreak charge from sacrificing teammates on a well-fortified capture.
Of the core modes, Hardpoint is especially reliant on effective team communication. Inconvenient spawns can throw off a coordinated push, so call out a regroup to consider the higher score potential on the incoming capture point.
Black Ops 4's Control
Players: 8 – 10
Aside from Blackout, Control and Heist represent significant departures for the Call of Duty series. The comparison to Overwatch and Counter Strike: Global Offensive are more than apt, with Control functioning in a way not dissimilar to control point maps in Blizzard’s character-based shooter. Teams are positioned either on offense or defense, with attacking teams needing to capture two points by standing in designated areas, preventing any of the defending team from entering it at the same time. Defending teams can prevent capture by standing within the same area as an attacker, and/or killing any enemies entering their zone.
Control is a mode where smart specialist selection thrives, and is especially improved by team communication. If you happen to have on-mic teammates, you’ll find that coordination can mean the difference between a quick win and a shutout. Once captured, a point cannot be retaken, so allocating resources and focusing on a specific capture point before moving onto the next one ensures that the majority of your team’s energy can be spent in one decisive battle instead of two.
Beyond that, Control also maintains a kind of Team Deathmatch layer to its gameplay, as each team begins with a limited number of respawns. Successfully burning through an enemy team’s reserves can net you an automatic win and is certainly a viable strategy, though it’s much quicker to succeed through straightforward point capture.
Control is all about chokes – how to approach them, dismantle them, and fortify them for your team. Some control points are little more than a choke point themselves, whereas others are wide open spaces with numerous and threatening lines of sight. It’s important to recognize which path of entrance is best worth exploiting, since there’s always an alternate approach to take if a defending team’s frontline has locked a specific path down.
Then again, that’s the beauty of many specialist abilities – clearing out chokes. Ruin’s Grav Slam and Battery’s War Machine and Cluster Grenade can obliterate a turtled up defense and scatter a choke into chaos. Beyond that, the overpowered Scorestreaks can shift the tide by focusing control points, which makes these armaments even more devastating when there’s only one point left to fight over.
A final quick tip about Control: if the chevrons surrounding the point are colored blue, it means your team is present on the zone. If red, an enemy is mid-capture on attack, or standing in its area on defense. If the chevrons are both colors, that means both attackers and defenders are on the point at the same time. The Black Ops 4 match announcer is usually rather attentive to these callouts, but just be aware that you can also read the battle from a distance by paying attention to chevron colors on the point.
Black Ops 4's Heist
Players: 8 – 10
For Counter Strike fans, Heist is the most CS-like experience they can get in Call of Duty. Complete with a pre-match shop and obtainable currency as the goal of each round, teams of 4v4 or 5v5 attempt to fight over a bag of cash, which can be brought to an extraction point to win the round. Since money continues to spill out of a captured duffel bag when being held, it’s usually best to bring it to the flare-marked extraction as quickly as possible.
And what happens with this retrieved cash? The beginning of each round allows players to purchase weapons, perks, and various other in-game benefits, and while both teams are given a set amount of money per round by default, only the previous round’s winner can obtain a sizable bonus.
For gamers who’ve never experienced this type of competitive game mode before, it can seem daunting at first. Offering a strange shop screen with dozens of available options, it’s hard to determine what the best purchases might be, or how these purchases might benefit your team. Also, character class bonuses or specialist armaments are irrelevant to Heist, which outfits all players with the same minimalist loadout, typically making the first rounds of Heist a pistols-only affair.
Of course, later rounds open up the armory, and soon you’ll have access to primary weapons, better parks, and scopes and attachments for your guns. Mid-to-late Heist rounds include more firepower and even Scorestreaks, though the team in the lead has a decidedly larger cash pool to draw from.
In a way, Heist exemplifies a particular philosophy which the series has crafted over the years: the better a team is doing, the more and more lethal they become in the later stages of play. Love it or leave it, it’s the Call of Duty way.