Menu

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 eSports Reveal – Info and Video on Demand

Activision and Treyarch hosted a live-stream at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany today where they revealed a ton of information and gameplay of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s new and improved eSports support. From a Ban and Protect feature to a Drafting system, there’s plenty for competitive players to look forward. We’ve summarised some of the new information for you below and have also included a video on demand in case you missed the stream or simply want to watch it again.

  • The live-stream was hosted by Activision’s Scott Lowe with appearances by Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar. In between interviews about the new features, a team of competitive players from around the world debuted the new eSports support in action in typical fast-paced, intense pro Call of Duty matches. The matches were casted by Maven and Mr. X.
  • League Player is now called ‘Arena’ – Intended to provide for a more accessible experience. There are 20 ranks and a Master Division. Players are ranked on wins and wins alone and will have to lose 2 games in a row in order to be demoted in ranks. Need to string together even more wins every 5 ranks in order to progress to the next level.
  • CODcaster mode has received a number of substantial upgrades. X Ray vision (allow for spectators to see players through walls) returns. A section in-game at the bottom left of the screen shows the spectated player’s class items and soldier appearance. There’s a wealth of new settings, including the ability to change team names (instead of default factions) and team colours (replacing the default faction logos).
  • ‘Bans & Protects’ is one of the key features revealed. This provides players with the option to decide on which piece of game content (everything from Specialists and weapons to Scorestreaks) should be banned from the forthcoming match and which should be protected from a ban. At beginning of matches, one player from each team will have a vote of Banning or Protecting an item within a 30 second countdown before the next two players get to vote (a total of 8 items can be Banned/Protected). In the first match, banned examples selected included UAV, Shock Charge and Mothership.
  • Specialist Draft – Each player from each team can only have one Specialist weapon or ability per team. Before the match begins, players vote on the Specialist that they want for the match
  • Once the Bans/Protects and Specialist votes have happened, there’s then a 40 second countdown for players to customize their Classes and Scorestreaks.
  • Live Event Viewer – A new feature which allows players to watch big eSports event live from a simple button press in-game.
  • Uplink is returning from Advanced Warfare.
  • Search and Destroy, Capture the Flag and Hardpoint all confirmed as returning game modes.
  • Matches played included Hardpoint on Combine, Search and Destroy on Hunted, and Uplink on Evac.
  • PlayStation 4 is officially the new home of Call of Duty eSports, meaning that the console will likely sponsor eSports events such as Call of Duty Championship and matches will be played on PS4 systems (as was the case during the reveal).
  • More information on features, leagues and seasons will be coming in the months to come.


Watch live video from Call of Duty on Twitch

Video of the day

Madden 16 Gameplay!