Call of Duty Black Ops 4's battle royale Blackout beta gets a September start date

Activision has announced that Blackout, Call of Duty Black Ops 4's so far only briefly seen battle royale mode, will begin its private beta testing schedule on September 10th.

The caveat here is that the Blackout beta start date only applies to PlayStation 4 users at present; it looks like interested parties on Xbox One and PC will once again be forced to sit it out until Sony's exclusivity window expires.

News of the Blackout beta, if you're wondering, comes via a brief video on the official Call of Duty Twitter feed (see below), which also teases solo, duos, and quad modes for Black Ops 4's battle royale experience - so nothing particularly revelatory there.

As for when Xbox One and PC players might get to put Blackout through its paces, the trailer notes that the beta will be "first on PS4" with other platforms to follow.

You might recall that Black Ops 4's recent multiplayer beta was split into two parts; the first was accessible only to PlayStation owners, while the second - which occurred precisely one week later - was available to all qualifying participants on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

So if the Blackout beta unfolds in a similar manner to its multiplayer predecessor, there's a good chance that it'll be open to all formats on September 17th. As before, a Black Ops 4 pre-order will be required to get involved - on Xbox One and PS4 at least.