Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ introduces Blitz, the next generation of Capture the Flag

By
call of duty ghosts blitz multiplayer mode hits refresh on capture the flag screenshot arctic lumber

Gamescom kicks off with news from Infinity Ward of yet another new multiplayer mode in Call of Duty: Ghosts, called “Blitz.” In Blitz, each team has a “portal” of sorts at their home base that players must defend. If you manage to step into the opposing team’s portal, your team scores a point and you’re immediately warped back to your base spawn. Every time a team scores a point, their target portal is locked for additional scoring until a timer ticks down to zero.

If you read our recent Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer preview, you might have caught a reference to a mysterious third mode that we tried but were asked not to talk about until Gamescom. Blitz is that mode. It’s meant to offer a fast-paced alternative to fans of “Capture the Flag.” Activision VP of production Daniel Suarez offered a few additional bits of insight about how Blitz works, in our chat with him.

Recommended Videos

“It’s basically an adaptation of Capture the Flag, except there’s no concept of returning the flag,” Suarez explained. “So each group has a hold point or an HQ, we call it a portal, that they are trying to defend. You’re trying to rush, or blitz, into that other group’s side. Once you’ve landed in [the portal], there’s a delay before the next person can go in. So it’s basically a much more frenetic Capture the Flag. 

Related
“There’s a lot of strategy that goes into this. People set up Trophy Systems and all these different kinds of things around it so they’re just trying to blow everybody up before they can get there. It’s more fast-paced.”
 
The description that Suarez offered rings true with our hands-on time in Blitz. The pace is fast, but there’s a definite ebb and flow as you rush in to attack and then pull back to defend as you wait for the timer to zero out. A respawn delay also helps to keep the flow of a Blitz match in check. It’s thrilling to leap into the portal and suddenly find yourself zapped back to home base, ready to defend what is sure to be a heavy push as the opposition realizes that they’ve now got a window in which there’s no need to worry about base defense.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Adam Rosenberg
Adam Rosenberg
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…
Call of Duty made Crash Team Rumble a better multiplayer game, says dev
Key art for Crash Team Rumble

Crash Team Rumble initially feels like a unexpected diversion for the long-running Crash Bandicoot series, but it’s a lot more fun than you might expect. I went hands-on with Crash Team Rumble at Summer Game Fest Play Days, and once I got the hang of its Wumpa-collecting match objectives, I had a blast discovering winning strategies with my teammates. Still, it feels like a pretty significant shift for developer Toys for Bob, which spent the 2010s working on Skylanders, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, and Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.

Crash Team Rumble™ - Gameplay Launch Trailer

Read more
The best Tempus Razorback loadout in Warzone
A character holding the Tempus Razorback in Warzone.

With the launch of Call of Duty: Warzone Season 4 comes the new Tempus Razorback assault rifle, which is available for free as part of the battle pass. You'll want to use this weapon mainly in fast-paced midrange situations, as it can be a little harder to control when firing at long-range. Still, you can build it to function well at around 45 meters or so, making it a competitive choice on the smaller maps. This is the best Tempus Razorback build in Warzone.
The best Tempus Razorback build

Muzzle
16-inch TANKR-V

Read more
Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0’s new update just nerfed the game’s best weapons
Characters on Ashika Island in Warzone 2.0.

Activision has released a new Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 update that nerfs the game's best long-range weapons: the Cronen Squall and the ISO Hemlock. Specifically, the damage across both weapons has been reduced, making them both less effective in all situations.

The news comes from the battle royale game's latest round of patch notes, which outlines the new changes to the weapons. There are some major implications to those changes, though the updates aren't as devastating as they might initially seem. Here's every tweak that was implemented in the new patch.

Read more