Now that I've had some time to play Black Ops Royale and really get a feel for the mode, I've come up with some thoughts about it that I think would make it better and why it's generally not very good right now.
For context I've played maybe a few dozen matches and have won maybe like 5 matches, one of which I managed to get a solo win with zero deaths and about 16 kills I think it was in the end.
The good:
- New map is kind of nice to see.
- The operator orders (challenges) are actual challenges for once.
- It's not Resurgence… although I do like Resurgence. It's a welcome change.
The bad:
- Everything has way too much RNG. Opening loot crates in this mode is essentially pointless because they give you the worst loot possible so unless you've just landed, there is zero need to open them.
- Weapon balancing from a player versus player perspective is terrible. All the games I've won is because I had purple or gold guns and the enemy didn't.
- There's just no loot anywhere. Why is it that the only guns I can find is a sniper or smoke grenades but enemy teams always seem to have gold ARs? It's just daft at this point. I spent ages in a few games earlier just purposefully going from POI to POI and I couldn't find any weapons.
- Cradle bombs are too infrequent and why are they always the other side of the map to me? I want to try and fully experience them but I can't because when I get there either the zone is closing and the zombies have gone or a team is just sat camping the mystery box. At least add more than 2 per game.
- Wing suits are awful. I hate them and they're stupid. Don't fall down an elevator shaft because the wing suits don't seem to open in there so you just die. Not only that but why do they just nose dive to the ground after gliding for 200m? Just give us parachutes please.
- Redeploy stations are way to spread out and hard to find. If you die after circle 2, just quit. Your teammates will either not bother travelling the 300m distance to try get you back or they'll die to people camping the towers. If there is going to be a redeploy mechanic, make it better than what we have now.
- I've already touched on this a bit but travelling around the map is the most tedious thing ever. It's fine on Verdansk but because there's so much topography and wing suits are terrible, going from point A to point B takes way too long. There's also not even helicopters either.
Overall I think the mode is fine but they could improve it in so many different ways. Make fights a little more balanced in regards to having more weapons available on the ground like SMGs and LMGs. There's way too many snipers and pistols lying around which I've seen very few people actually use.
I know there will be RNG in matches too but can we maybe have some more loot crates to give people a little bit of a fighting chance when / if they come back? If not, just remove redeploys so if you die, you're done. I don't understand this middle ground of letting people come back but making it so impossible that people just don't try.
I'd give the mode a solid 6 out of 10. It's okay but it's quite clearly been thrown together with a lot of stuff just copied and pasted from Endgame. I can see this mode being taken out of Warzone and ported into Black Ops 7 just like what happened with DMZ and Modern Warfare 2. I'm certain of it. This won't carry forward.