Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode is getting a new map today, but only for PS4 owners

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout battle royale mode is getting a new map, and it’s coming today.

The new map, Alcatraz, takes both name and inspiration from the prison island located in San Francisco Bay. If that sounds smaller than the existing hodge podge of popular multiplayer maps that makes up Blackout’s map right now, you would be right. Alcatraz is altogether a much more compact affair, which Activision even describes as “close quarters battle royale” in the trailer.

Take a look, and it certainly does feel close quarters. Blackout is a very high speed version of traditional battle royales already, a title best played with the mantra “always be moving.” How they can amp that up even more for close quarters battle remains to be seen.

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What is seen is a few of the differences present in Alcatraz. It looks like there are some long range firefights to be had around the outside of the central prison, but there’s also a ton of verticality: a deathtrap gondola looks like the ultimate in risk and reward, providing you can use it to get to the top of the prison, while elsewhere there’s just a lot of vertical fighting that’s sure to provide a headache.  

As per Sony’s deal with Activision, Alcatraz is coming to PlayStation 4 players today, April 2,  and it’ll be rolling out on the PC and Xbox at some unspecified point in the near future.

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This is around the mid-cycle point for Call of Duty, and if it keeps up its usual year-on-year case of sequelitis, we’ll see content for Black Ops 4 start to dry up around August. That means there’s still space for plenty of work on Alcatraz, and perhaps even a third mystery Blackout map before E3. Obviously, that’s just speculation, but it’d be fun, right?

Still playing Blackout? How are you getting on in the wake of recent content additions? Let us know on Twitter at @TrustedReviews.