Treyarch have announced Call of Duty Black Ops IIII this week but rumours suggest it will come with a new DLC model.

Traditionally, Call of Duty games receive a four map season pass. It’s been this way for many years, as far back as Black Ops 2 when Xbox had the exclusive. Playstation picked up the baton from 2016 with Infinite Warfare, but after last year’s WWII it seems things are about to change.

The first big clue came when EB Games had a listing for a Specialist Edition of Call of Duty Black Ops IIII and there was no mention of a Season Pass anywhere. Bare in mind, this is the complete edition of the game, complete with a steel case and 5″ statue, as well as digital items and Call of Duty Points. You can also gain access to a Private Beta.

Normally at this stage, a Season Pass is at least announced, but not this time.

The second clue came from Dan Bunting in an interview with Polygon where Treyarch refused to be drawn into comment on DLC but made this interesting comment…

‘“I can’t tell you at this point in time what [DLC] is going to look like, but I can tell you that we are pushing hard to release content to our fans in a way that’s going to make them happy and a way that we believe is the right thing to do in this stage in our game’s lifespan.”

The right thing to do in this stage in our game’s lifespan? It’s certainly a very different market now, what with the continued growth of games like Fortnite, PUBG and many more. And with the game dropping its single player campaign entirely, they need to add something extra to sweeten the deal, right?

The third and final clue comes from speculated leaks from Matthew Harris who mentioned ahead of time that the game would be losing its campaign mode. He was right about that, so it’s quite possible he’s right about this…

“Our sources claim that this is where we will see the most radical shift in the delivery of content. As opposed to players getting the usual four maps every couple of months they will receive a map, or in some cases two maps, every month.”

Honestly, this is absolutely the right move from Call of Duty at this stage in the game. It’s become very clear that the traditional method for Season Passes isn’t as popular as it used to be. Plus they consider EA to be their biggest rival and with them releasing so much free content for their shooters – Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Titanfall 2 – it’s time to get with the times.

Plus, with games like Fortnite offering massive content updates for free on a regular basis, COD is actually getting left behind quite drastically.

That said, it is being rumoured that Black Ops IIII will still have some form of Season Pass, but it will be related to Zombies content only

Potentially big changes, then. Perhaps Activision is finally facing up to the reality that COD isn’t the juggernaut it once was? Still, this is speculative at this stage and unconfirmed as of the writing of this article. But I would expect some differences to the way COD delivers its additional content this year and every year thereafter.

Expect more news at E3.

(Via GamingIntel)