The official Call of Duty community blog has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 will eschew the single-player campaign featured in the current-generation versions of the upcoming military shooter.
As such, the last-generation versions of the game will only feature the multiplayer and zombies mode that also come packaged in the PS4, PC and Xbox One editions. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as it was previously hinted that the PS3 version would lack several features compared to the PS4 release.
Unsurprisingly, it appears that hardware limitations of Sony and Microsoft’s aging consoles were to blame for the decision: “The ambitious scope of the 1-4 player coop Campaign design of the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions could not be faithfully recreated on old generation hardware.”
In addition to lacking the single-player campaign, the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions won’t include “features built to leverage the next generation hardware like the new Weapon Paint Shop and the new suite of eSports tools [which] will only be available on Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.”
Despite lacking several key features, the game will still retail for $49.99 on previous-gen hardware. However, it will also include a “bonus download for the original Call of Duty: Black Ops (bonus download availability may vary by region)."
Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is due out in early November. The game will feature a unique PS4 hardware bundle that includes a copy of the game and a Black Ops 3-themed console and DualShock 4 pad. Zombies mode was among the first features to be confirmed for Black Ops 3, along with confirmation that the shooter will run at 1080p on PS4. Early screenshots of the game looked amusingly like an offspring of Destiny and Titanfall.
Black Ops 3 takes place 40 years after the events of its predecessor in the year 2065. With air assault rendered virtually useless thanks to the application of several high-tech defenses, combat around the globe now takes place behind enemy lines in covert operations. In this war zone however, soldiers possess superhuman abilities, with humans now considered more machine than flesh and blood thanks to the array of enhancements to their bodies.
As with the previous game, Black Ops 3 follows a group of super soldiers belonging to an elite black ops unit as they battle across a series of futuristic environments, wielding an assortment of deadly weaponry. The campaign can be played alone or with up to four friends, while Zombies will include its own campaign as well as multiplayer, along with a revamped XP system.