Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is about to receive its first major piece of DLC for the Blackout battle royale mode in the form of a new map based on the notorious island prison, Alcatraz.
News went out via Twitter this morning as the official Call of Duty account invited players to “lock it down” and “take no prisoners” in the new Alcatraz Blackout map dropping into Black Ops 4 Tuesday, April 2, on PlayStation 4. And yes, timed exclusivity is still a thing, so you won’t see the new map on other platforms for at least a few weeks yet. The tweet was accompanied by a trailer, which you can clap peeper on below.
The real tricky part about this announcement is that it was made on April 1, so folks weren’t sure whether or not they were looking at a legit reveal. A new battle royale map nearly stealth-launching into a popular shooter is exactly the kind of fodder you would expect for a misguided April Fool’s joke, so you’d be forgiven for assuming Activision was trying to pull a fast one on the community.
Once the trailer gets rolling, though, it quickly becomes apparent that the Alcatraz map is not only inbound, but it actually looks like a lot of fun. It’s much smaller than your standard battle royale map, but it still looks to be a pretty dense location with lots of buildings and multiple floors. As is the case with the first Blackout map, Alcatraz looks to be heavily inspired by the series’ location as it appears in the zombies mode. It’s appropriate, then, that this new map also sports zombies that can be unleashed upon your opponents.
The Alcatraz map won’t be paid DLC, it’ll just drop into the game like normal and players will be able to pick which map they want to play on. Also, from April 2-30, the Blackout mode will be free to play for anyone who wants to give it a try on your platform of choice.