Black Ops 4 has a sniper rifle built specifically for quickscopers

Quickscoping has always been a heated topic in the Call of Duty community, but Treyarch thinks it has landed on a solution for Black Ops 4.

“This is something that goes back a long time. Some games were considered quickscope games, and other games were considered, you know, you couldn’t quickscope,” Treyarch expert game designer Tony Flame explains. “But there’s a huge community of snipers out there who would get frustrated - we have millions of players out there who love sniping.”

For Black Ops 4, Treyarch is attempting to cater to those who want to lead a target and snipe properly, as well as those who want to use a sniper rifle like a long-range shotgun.

“We have a full suite [of sniper rifles] for different playstyles - but we do have a single gun that’s actually meant for quickscopers and the whole gun is balanced around that,” Flame says. “It’s a very high-skilled gun - if you’re very good, you’re gonna be able to have benefits like fast ADS time and smaller hit spread, so you’re going to get to use those traditional quickscope mechanics, but the gun is going to be balanced so you have to be super accurate.”

In other words, you can quickscope in Black Ops 4 if you choose this specific gun, but you have to be very good at it. The idea behind this is we won’t see matches full of people quickscoping, it’ll just be the odd superhuman.

“So we are supporting that playstyle, but we’re designing specifically for it in Black Ops 4,” Flame continues. “We think the sniping community is going to be happy, and the rest of the players - there’s only going to be so many snipers doing that so you have a good mix of gameplay styles going on.”

Obviously, the range of different maps will make some more viable than others for sniping playstyles. No doubt those who love sniping at range will feel more at home within Blackout, the new battle royale mode that features a full ballistics model.

That’s not to say the standard multiplayer won’t cater to longer-range engagements, however.

“The multiplayer is definitely fast and frenetic and we’ve kind of put those [smaller] maps out early to get people into the game, jump in quick, you get the excitement levels going, you spawn and get in the action,” Flame says. “We have larger maps as well.

“In terms of content, we’ve even got new attachments and new things you can use for that sniping playstyle. For example, there’s the ADS loader where, while you’re loading, you can stay scoped in on your target so you don’t have to break line of sight. We’ve got gameplay content for that, we’ve got maps - there are two new maps in the beta players haven’t seen before and they do include some longer sightlines. Sniping has its place.”

For more, here's how Black Ops 4 is changing scorestreaks.