One of my favourite things to do in Blackout, Call of Duty's take on battle royale, is to crash through windows. I know it makes a lot of noise, I know it alerts nearby enemies to my position and I know there's a door right next to the window. But I just can't help myself. Sprint, vault, smash! I'm inside, glass on the floor, loot to pick up or - hopefully - an enemy player who dies at my hand while marvelling at the grandeur of my entrance.
Vaulting through windows is so much fun because it's so slick. It just works, with great audio and feedback. And it's symptomatic of the Call of Duty battle royale experience. This is a triumph of execution over inspiration. Blackout does not rewrite the battle royale rulebook, but it stands out because it works really, really well.
When it first emerged developer Treyarch was jumping on the battle royale bandwagon, it was hard to imagine how the traditional Call of Duty experience, with its blistering, 60 frames per second gunplay and speedy first-person action would translate into a massive map and a genre where tactics are as important as an accurate trigger finger. Now, having ploughed hours in Blackout, in solos, duos and quads, on my own, with strangers and with a team of friends, I find it hard to imagine a Call of Duty game without a battle royale mode, so successful is this new way to play the series. With battle royale, Call of Duty is at its most compelling in years - and there are good number of reasons why Blackout could be the best battle royale of the bunch.
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