Like tens of millions of other people around the world, I’ve been playing a lot of Blackout since the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. It’s a fun mode, and possibly the most fun I’ve had with a Battle Royale title to date, but there are a few aspects of it that wear on me.
One thing I’ve been confused about is that picking up gear seems just as annoying as it did in the beta, despite feedback that Treyarch said it was addressing. In Blackout, you have to hold down square/X to pick up everything from weapons to armor to grenades to ammo, which feels cumbersome given how much loot is in the game.
Treyarch says they’ve shortened the hold time as much as possible, but if you’re like me, it still feels weird. But turns out there’s an “opt-out” option for this system.
Go to settings, go to Blackout, and then change the hold to pick up option to a button press instead. Then, all you’ll have to do is tap square to pick up whatever you want, which is a much faster system. I find it way, way better to use, and I’m wondering why it isn’t the default.
According to Treyarch, the reason it isn’t the default is that if say, you’re fighting in a room full of loot and you go to reload your weapon early, you might tap square and pick up something instead of reloading, given that they’re the same button. This is apparently the entire reason this hold to pick up system exists, which seems like kind of a clunky fix to me. Since changing to the tap system, I have had no problems picking up stuff when I want to be reloading, and it seems like such a niche situation that the pain of holding buttons every time you want to loot 80 times a game is not offset by whatever risks tapping may come with 1% of the time.
I also thought that Treyarch was going to change Blackout ammo pickups to be walk-over-to-pick-up, where you don’t have to press a button at all a-la-Fortnite, but that hasn’t happened, nor is it a menu option either. Supposedly this is because when they tested this, everyone just ended up with essentially infinite ammo when they didn’t have to make a conscious decision to pick up the ammo they wanted. I don’t quite understand this because plenty of other games have auto ammo pick up and yet ammo constraints are still often present (again, Fortnite), so why can’t they just reduce ammo spawns or the amount you get? Seems like a weird fix to me.
Regardless, I think most people will be happier with the button tap to pick up setting than they will the hold setting, and I’m betting 95% of players won’t realize you can even change it, which is why I wrote this article. Try it out and let me know if it makes your Blackout experience better.
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