Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Unseen Cutscenes & Animations Surface Online

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 was a COD title that chose to deviate from the path and not include a single-player campaign. When the first rumors of this appeared online, the community reacted negatively. In an interview with Game Rant, Treyarch co-studio head Dan Bunting responded to this by saying, “We are delivering so much more of what players spend most of their time doing in our games in the series.”

More recently though, in-dev cutscenes and animations from Black Ops 4’s 2v2 Career campaign have made their way online. The video is a little over a minute long and features early weapon animations, first-person cutscenes, 3D animations, and something that very closely resembles a quick-time event. Judging by the presentation, it appears to be a portfolio of sorts.

Recently found in-dev cutscenes and animations from Black Ops 4’s Career campaign.
by u/Ok-Bass-4379 in Blackops4

The development of Black Ops 4 was fairly turbulent. While it was initially reported to feature a 2v2 campaign mode titled “Career,” this mode would later be scrapped and replaced with a last-minute Battle Royale called Blackout. The campaign would have featured the option for solo players to play with AI bots but all this came to a halt due to technical concerns, timing, and negative feedback from playtesters.

It’s always interesting when footage about canceled games or scrapped modes surfaces on the internet. As humans and gamers, thinking about what a certain title could have been like, what more it may have brought to the table, and other what-ifs really satisfy the element of curiosity that’s within us all. Or at least that’s what we believe.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 was released in 2018 to a generally favorable reception. It was praised by the critics for the things it offered and while the lack of a campaign was frowned upon, the positives of the content it had couldn’t be denied. Black Ops 4 went on to gross over $500 million in worldwide retail sales within its first three days of release. 

However, it failed to maintain that momentum according to Activision at the time and it was decided that the next entry will feature a solo campaign. Nevertheless, the success of Black Ops 4 was clear as day. It hits home the fact that Call of Duty is a gargantuan franchise, especially with the recent battle over the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft.

CMA recently blocked the acquisition citing that the merger would restrict the growth of the rapidly-growing cloud gaming market despite the recent failure of Google Stadia. Microsoft President Brad Smith stated that they remain fully committed to the acquisition and will appeal CMA’s decision.