Who Did Battle Royale Better, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 or PUBG?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 recently released this month and while the reviews have been mixed the battle royale mode, Blackout, has been the most positively received mode. It captures the intensity and large-scale fighting found in a similar shooter PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. Despite just entering the battle royale scenes does Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout mode overshadow PUBG or does it fall flat?

Progression

Progression in both Blackout and PUBG are absurd. For PUBG players experience is earned for surviving in matches, completing missions, and leveling up. However, you're leveling up the Event Pass throughout the season. This allows you to unlock premium awards, some limited and others permanent. 

Each mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has its own progression system and Blackout is no exception. However, compared to the other modes obtaining rewards in Blackout is much harder and longer. Ranging from completing Character Missions, that don't carry over, or Echelon levels by killing players, completing challenges, or placing high in a match. 

You get 50 merits for getting into the top 15 solos (10 for duo and 5 for quads), 100 merits for winning, and 10 merits for each kill. To reach the maximum level of 80 you'll need 44,200 merits. Compared to the other modes this leveling system is undesirable.

Battle Royale is one of the harder games to create a progression system because of how it works. Performance enhancing upgrades is completely out of the question but you would assume more cosmetics would be available to replace them. Neither game features a particularly well-crafted progression system, it's just serviceable. 

Winner: Tie

Stability

What Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout mode does well is keeping the playing field stable and fair. Those who frequent PUBG know that the game has a cheating problem, especially in Asia Territories.

This problem continues to escalate and many of the PUBG community have voiced their concerns about this epidemic. This hasn't been easy as the game has a massive population but PUBG Corp. has taken steps such as partnering with BattleEye to ban cheaters and taken action against those selling cheating tools.

Blackout has been relatively stable since its launch. With Treyarch and Activision Blizzard taking their zero tolerance approach towards cheaters and cracking down on those who sell the cheating mods. Those caught for cheating have been prompty caught and banned.

Winner: Blackout

Gameplay

Both PUBG and Blackout don't revolutionize the battle royale formula or introduce unique aspects found in other titles using the same genre, but they're fun. Both games offer a great military-style shooter with lots of calamities. 

PUBG does have the advantage of giving players the option of first and third person, allowing gamers to choose their own preference. However, it hard to ignore polished and beautiful Blackout looks compared to PUBG. 

Both offer their own individual style and atmosphere. Blackout maintains its own distinct Call of Duty style while PUBG plays like its own game. PUBG does offer more maps but the game has been out much longer and its likely that Treyarch will add more content to Blackout in the future.

Neither game overshadows the other with Blackout feeling more polished but PUBG offering more map variety. Blackout does have the potential to engulf PUBG if Treyarch adds more maps to the battle royale mode but PUBG currently has more variety in how and what to play. Until you're faced with another cheater.

Winner: Tie

Winner: Blackout

PUBG may have more variety but Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's more polished and stable Blackout mode offers a more reliable experience. The threat of those using cheating software can provide a more vexing experience, especially considering how common it become in PUBG. With Blackout you're less likely to encounter such a player.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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