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So far, though, Treyarch is off to an exciting start. Call of Duty has long wrestled with stagnation, and I’m glad Treyarch has figured out a happy medium between old and new-though we won't see the extent of the team’s ambition until we can test the battle royale Blackout mode come September. The abilities don't follow the hard-counter principle from other games, so I can foresee a lot of frustrating jabs at the 'leave match' button if Treyarch lets the pendulum swing wild. Stomps are nothing new to CoD-I once got airstriked, napalmed, and shot by an attack chopper three respawns in a row-but I worry for the pick-up nature of ‘Duty once players figure out the best Specialists and guns for every map. I’m concerned, however, that some Specialists will fade away into obscurity when the inescapable meta forms, especially when coordinated squads face up against public queuers. One of the benefits to the steep cost of trading key pieces of Specialist equipment for a grenade is that in my experience it vastly quieted the spammy boom-fests of previous games, reducing the number of people chucking explosives across the map at each respawn. Still, abilities are effective enough that they’ll likely never leave their slot for most of your loadouts. BO4’s pick-10 loadout system-10 points to customize a kit with attachments, perks, and gadgets-allows you to swap out your Specialist’s ability entirely (the ultimate stays) for a different piece of kit such as a grenade or throwing axe. I’m fairly confident you could contribute and even succeed in a match without using abilities whatsoever, ensuring the immortality of no-scope montages forevermore. Treyarch has carefully introduced a mix of offensive, defensive, and support abilities, dancing away from an overabundance of pace-shattering powers that stun or debilitate-and those that do, such as Torque’s razor wire or Ajax’s nine-bang flash grenade, temper their annoyance factor with extended recharge times. His ultimate boosts the health of his teammates, delivering a gratifying rush in clutch holdouts.įor the most part, firing off abilities provides instant results, but I liked how they respectfully share space with CoD's usual gunplay. Crash drops ammo packs for his team that award bonus score per kill, shortcutting access to critical scorestreaks to snowball momentum. His vision pulse ultimate gives the team Widowmaker-style enemy silhouettes through walls for a precious few seconds, and I loved saving it for a sneaky push behind clusters of enemies or for setting up an ambush when defending a control point. Recon’s sensor dart lights up enemy blips on the minimap in a roomy radius. Some of my best matches were from using Recon and Crash, two support-oriented Specialists emphasizing BO4’s renewed focus on teamplay. Choosing how you’ll shape your playstyle takes only a few moments on the Specialist select screen.
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Battery closes off flanks with explosives, Ruin is oriented for close-quarters power, and so on. I appreciate the straightforwardness of each Specialist’s talents. Each brings a single unique ability on a somewhat lengthy cooldown and an ultimate, the latter bound to Q by default in polite respect of your muscle memory. They're CoD-ified takes on character-based classes influenced by popular hero shooters such as Overwatch and Rainbow Six: Siege. Specialists, which have returned from Black Ops 3, encourage teamplay as well. As a nice touch, kills provide equal scoreboard credit to everyone who dealt damage to the target, a welcome encouragement for assists in an arena where hogging frags for killstreaks has been the tired norm for too long. The changes bring another plus, as the deeper health pool and slightly slower time-to-kill are pushing players into working more closely together.