YMMV / Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

• Broken Base: Has become one of the most divisive entries into the franchise. The only thing fans seem to agree upon is the Microtransactions (or rather, the pervasive nature of them that were funneled into the game.
  • The lack of a proper campaign was divisive before the game even launched. Singleplayer components for modern shooters are still enjoyed as evidenced by Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Doom (2016), and every single Call of Duty game before Black Ops 4 has had a singleplayer campaign. So when Black Ops 4 arrived with no proper campaign (and its replacement are just short missions in the standard multiplayer maps), it proved to be very controversial. In essence, this game embraced the multiplayer side of the franchise up to eleven and became widely disliked. And it doesn't even have the excuse of being on lower-end hardware like the previous Black Ops game did when it also came without a campaign on those, so it's even more baffling.
• Complete Monster: The High Priest of Chaos, the Big Bad of the "Chaos" story, plans to use the Prima Materia to control all of humanity and rule the world. Forming The Order by killing countless people before resurrecting and brainwashing them into becoming his followers with the Scepter of Ra, he would also use the Scepter of Ra to make himself immortal. Surviving into 1912, he has The Order pursue Alistair Rhodes, where he has all the people attending Alistair's mansion turned into zombies, creating mass carnage. When a group led by Alistair's daughter, Scarlett, travels to his time in Ancient Rome, he uses a Sentinel Artifact to turn all his slaves into zombies and forces the four to fend off the zombie hoard and complete the Trial of Ra before he attempts to execute them.
• Contested Sequel: While the game carries over the classic "boots on the ground" gameplay from WWII, it's not without its detractors. As mentioned above in Broken Base, while some praise the game for having more tactical, skill-based gameplay, others hate it for this exact reason. The fact that the campaign was dropped in favor of a Battle Royale mode really doesn't make things any better, either. And the less said about the Zombies portion of the game (see the Broken Base entry for BO4 Zombies here), the better.
• Fandom Rivalry: The game has two with Fortnite and Apex Legends thanks to its Battle Royale mode. Many detractors of the Black Ops 4 pointed out how Blackout is stuck behind a $60 paywall and is saddled with a money-gouging freemium economy while the other Battle Royale games are free to play.
• Game-Breaker: Like you wouldn't believe.
  • The SAUG 9mm. High rate of fire? Check. Extremely fast reload? Check. Fast time to kill? Massive check. It's also the only weapon in the game that is able to be dual-wielded (since dual-wielding is the Operator Mod for it). Despite being the last SMG you unlock, it's still extremely overpowered. The only downside is the low damage, and even then, the high rate of fire and ability to dual wield the gun more than makes up for it. In fact, pretty much all of the SMGs in the game count as this, but of them, the Spitfire, Cordite, and the Saug stand out the most.
  • The Spitfire, it's basically the Skorpion EVO from Call of Duty: Black Ops II, having by far the highest rate of fire of any gun in the game, giving it by far one of, if not the fastest time to kill of any gun in the game. The only downside is that it has very high recoil, but you don't need to manage recoil if the enemy is already dead, right? And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, enter the Operator Mod: Wildfire. Equip this and watch with mouth agape as your fire rate becomes increased to impossibly high levels, turning the Spitfire into a bullet hose.
  • The Cordite. Decently high rate of fire? Check. Decent damage? Check. Decent recoil? Check. Absolutely massive magazine capacity? There isn't a check big enough! Oh, and might we add that some of the attachments it can equip include Grip, Rapid Fire, and Extended Mags? And it can equip an ELO sight? Oh, and its operator mod? Yeah, it literally gives it the highest mag capacity in the game, literally firing from its own ammo pool! Sure, it might not reload that fast, and it definitely isn't broken like the Saug 9mm, but it's still a very powerful gun nonetheless.
  • Shotguns (or, well, the only two at launch) are generally considered mediocre across the board, with the exception of the SG12. The fact that it has damage and mag capacity comparable to the equally despised 205 Brecci from Black Ops III is bad enough, but Treyarch outdid themselves by giving it the Strobe Light operator mod - which sacrifices the ability to ADS for a bright flashlight which serves as a slightly less effective 9-Bang. Run the SG12 with the Strobe Light, Extended Mags II, and Max Load to increase damage output even further, and congratulations - everyone in the lobby is going to hate your guts. Oh, might we mention that this goes into your sidearm slot, meaning you can also run dual Saug 9mm's as well? If you do, congratulations - You've just become the embodiment of fucking Satan. Makes you wonder if someone at Treyarch has it out for the CoD community.
  • Thanks to a nerf to the Strobe Light, the MOG 12 has taken the place of the SG12 as the shotgun of choice. Equip Barrel Choke on this thing, and you have yourself the equivalent of the 870 MCS from Black Ops 2. It can kill you from downright absurd distances for a shotgun, while firing from the hip. Things get even worse if you equip the Operator Mod: Dragon Breath. Now all of your pellets become incendiary rounds and induce a burn effect, meaning if an enemy is unlucky enough to not have healing available, they're dead in one shot.
  • The Rampart 17 is the second Assault Rifle you unlock. At first glance, it has a pathetically bad rate of fire and above-average damage. Seems fairly underwhelming for an Assault Rifle, right? Wrong. Equip High Caliber II and watch enemies drop like flies in 2-3 shots due to the very manageable recoil.
  • At first, the Titan Light Machine Gun seems rather underwhelming due to its painfully average stats...until you unlock the Operator Mod: the Oppressor. This extremely annoying attachment causes the screen of any enemies within the path of the Titan's bullets to shake violently, which actually serves to throw off their aim and also causes them to flinch harder if they get hit. If you manage to land the first shot, you are practically guaranteed a free kill because the enemy will not be able to aim correctly at you due to the immense flinching effect.
  • The Maddox is one of the most broken weapons in the whole series, let alone the game. Very low recoil, very good handling traits, great damage, and perhaps most irritating, an SMG rate of fire. And that's just the base gun. Equipping Fast Mags II makes every alternate reload near-instantaneous (around 0.2 seconds compared to 1.5 seconds).
  • The DLC Weapons make the base game weapons look like pea shooters. To whit: the Daemon has one of the best TTK for any weapon, despite being a burst fire weapon; the Switchblade has one of the fastest fire rates with Rapid Fire II, and less recoil than the Spitfire as a result; the Swat is one of the best all-rounder weapons in the game; the Peacekeeper even more so. The Tigershark LMG has the smallest magazine of all the LMGs but makes up for it with the best handling in class; the Vendetta sniper rifle makes the Auger look like child's play, being a semi-auto rifle with a 3 hit kill damage profile, and a huge headshot multiplier. The Stingray laughs at the burst fire tactical rifles thanks to its Impact Blast Mod granting it explosive rounds which kill in two shots. The Locus sniper is a far superior Paladin due to its better handling and capacity, while the Havelina AA50 is a semi-automatic sniper rifle with a huge one-hit kill range. The Argus outperforms the MOG at all levels, the KAP-45 is the best in class pistol, and the Special Weapons, while niche, offer One Hit Kill potential as secondary weapons.
• Genius Bonus: The Roman numeral of the title being spelled IIII instead of IV is not a mistake or stylistic choice on the part of the developers. The earliest Roman numerals went I, II, III, IIII, V, VI, VII, VIII, VIIII, X. Eventually IIII and VIIII were shortened to IV and IX, respectively. Amusingly, there's a map in Zombies that is actually called IX... with said map being a Best Level Ever contender in the Zombies community.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: Downplayed somewhat; while this is mostly the sentiment for the Zombies portion (see more on that topic here), a lot of the DLC weapons are simply recycled from Black Ops III and outright violate that game's lore due to them being anachronistic to their mid-2040's setting.^note  For example, as per an in-game wiki in BO3, the VMP wouldn't be produced in-universe until 2061, 20 years after the events of BO4. Either way, there is a decent mix of classic weapons like the Galil and AN-94 as well as entirely new ones like the Switchblade X9 and Havelina AA-50.
• Memetic Mutation: Redditor johnny_no_smiles thought the Saug 9mm submachine gun looked like a Bosch cordless drill and made a Bosch drill skin for it. This started a trend.
• Older Than They Think: Western players are often surprised that this isn't actually the first Call of Duty Battle Royale Game because that honor goes to Call of Duty Online, a game that was only released in China.
  • By technicality, Black Ops 4 isn't the first Call of Duty to not have a singleplayer campaign. That honor goes to the last-gen versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which decided to axe the singleplayer in favor of just multiplayer and zombies.
• Questionable Casting: Edward Bosco's performance as Jason Hudson sounds absolutely nothing like Ed Harris, let alone Michael Keaton's take on it.