Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout may never have leaning because Vonderhaar isn't fond of it

Leaning is usually "bullshit" in shooters, according to Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout borrows more than a few elements from PUBG, the battle royale game it's most inspired by. But one thing that's not in the Blackout beta, and one you may never see at launch, is the ability to lean.

Leaning/peeking left or right is a feature you'll see in plenty of shooters, most prominently in the hardcore and tactical variety. Rainbow Six Siege, Insurgency, PUBG, and of course more realstic games like Arma, and Squad all have it.

It's implemented differently in each of them, however, but David Vonderhaar doesn't believe the best, fairest version exists yet. The design director joined Shroud, and Lirik's squad on stream on Monday (via PCGamesN), and talked a little bit about leaning.

"Lean is very difficult to get right," said Vonderhaar. "We’ve tried it before many times. Bottom line is, there’s always some case where some guy can peek you, and you can’t see him and he can see you, and that’s BS. That’s the reason."

The team even looked into adding lean only on PC, but ultimately decided against it. "I looked at it over and over again, and I’m not a fan. I don’t like it when you can get seen, but not see. It’s hard enough to get that right without lean.”

Vonderhaar went on to say that there's always the possibility that lean could be added to the game post-launch. "I would never say never, because there's always... it’s just day one. There’s so much time and room to grow, and you could always try it again."

You can check out the full stream archive below. Lean chat starts at the four hour, 46-minute mark.

Speaking of changes, Treyarch already pushed a few of them live to the PS4 beta, such as an increase to the player count per match, a nerf to the sensor dart and more.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Blackout beta goes live this Friday on PC, and Xbox One.