Author: Trafficblast

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 developer Treyarch has rolled out Holiday events and promotions across the game. These include a seasonal makeover for Blackout, the game’s battle royale mode, which has had environments spruced up with lighting and decorations. There’s also snowballs in the game now and Supply Stashes are holiday themed too.

Blackout players also have a new limited-time mode to check out called Close Quarters Frenzy. “Fight to outlast a faster Collapse using close-quarters weapons–shotguns, SMGs, pistols, and melee are your only means of survival,” Treyarch said, describing the mode.

In the Black Market, meanwhile, there’s a large selection of new themed items to unlock. Since Activision has a timed exclusivity deal for Black Ops 4 with Sony, these items are currently only available on PS4, but will arrive on Xbox One and PC on December 20. In Zombies, meanwhile, there’s the Winter Calling event, which gives players a unique set of challenges to complete, in exchange for special unlocks.

Players on PS4, Xbox One, and PC will also get double experience points in multiplayer and Zombies, starting December 14 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM EST / 6 PM GMT / 5 AM December 15 AEDT, and lasting throughout the weekend. If you’re playing Blackout during this period you’ll get double merits.

Treyarch has also detailed various changes it has made to all versions of the game in the latest Black Ops 4 update. The patch notes are fairly lengthy, containing information on how its addressed various exploits, improved stability in multiplayer, mixed up playlists, and tweaked Operators. You can see the full patch notes here.

Black Ops 4 takes some big departures from the traditional Call of Duty formula. Not only did it drop the single-player campaign in favour of a more robust multiplayer offering, but it also introduced the new Blackout mode in response to the popularity of the battle royale genre. In her review, Kallie Plagge gave Black Ops 4 an 8/10.

“Black Ops 4 isn’t short on content, and its three main modes are substantial,” she said. “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.” Read GameSpot’s full Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review for a deeper analysis of the game.

Nintendo has released a patch for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the Switch entry in its star-studded brawler series. Patch 1.2.0 makes some adjustments to the difficulty of challengers that appear in the offline mode, but the more impactful tweaks are to its online offerings.

First up, Quickplay will now keep the ruleset you prefer in mind a little more when searching for opponents. However, as noted by Nintendo in the patch notes, matchmaking could take a little more time because of this, and there’s no guarantee that the match you get will use the ruleset.

Nintendo has also improved the stability of the connection in Battle Arenas and, hopefully, this should improve the shaky connectivity issues many Smash players have reported since the game’s launch. Take a look at the full patch notes below, courtesy of Nintendo.

Offline Gameplay

• Adjusted difficulty of approaching challengers

Online Gameplay

• When matching in Quickplay, the Format setting of your Preferred Rules will be more highly prioritized. This may cause matchmaking to take more time, and there’s still no guarantee that you’ll find a match that has your exact Preferred Rules.
• Increased the stability of the synchronous connection within Battle Arenas.

Note: Online features requite a Nintendo Switch Online Membership

Misc.

• Game balance adjustments
• Various gameplay fixes
• Specific Fighter Adjustments to Donkey Kong, Link, Kirby, Luigi, Ice Climbers, Young Link, Olimar, Villager, Greninja, Pac-Man, Duck Hunt, and Isabelle.

In GameSpot’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate review, Edmond Tran awarded the game a 9/10, saying “an inconsistent online mode and situational downers don’t stop Super Smash Bros. Ultimate from shining as a flexible multiplayer game that can be as freewheeling or as firm as you want it to be.

“Its entertaining single-player content helps keep the game rich with interesting things to do, as well as bolstering its spirit of loving homage to the games that have graced Nintendo consoles. Ultimate’s diverse content is compelling, its strong mechanics are refined, and the encompassing collection is simply superb.”

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