Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 battle royale beta dates revealed (Updated)

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The action restarts on September 10 on PS4, but the rest of us will have to wait.

Update: It turns out that my guess was a little off the mark: The Black Ops 4 Blackout beta will come to PC on September 14 for those who have preordered the game, just four days after the PS4 beta begins, and September 15 for everyone else.

Original story:

Activision announced today that the second Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 public beta test will begin on September 10. On the PlayStation 4, that is—the rest of us will have to wait a little longer.

Assuming the schedule follows the same pattern as the first public beta, which debuted on August 3 for PS4 and August 10 for PC and Xbox One, we can expect it to come to PC the following weekend—so, September 17. An Activision rep said that date hasn't been confirmed yet, but I'll update if and when it is.

The first Black Ops 4 public beta featured six conventional multiplayer modes and introduced a few major changes to the series, most notably the end of auto-regenerating health. Round two, as the tweet makes clear, will be all about Blackout, the new battle royale mode that was announced in May and teased, very briefly, at the end of July. 

Andy Chalk
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.