Play Black Ops 4's Blackout For Free Right Now (Including New Alcatraz Map)

Alcatraz, the first new map for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's Blackout battle royale mode, released last week on PS4, and it will arrive on PC and Xbox One sometime this week. With this substantial addition arriving for the mode, Activision has decided now is the time to lure in more players. It's doing that by opening the mode, which you can normally only access by owning Black Ops 4, to all players, free of charge. This free access is open across all three platforms and lasts until the end of April.

Although Blackout--the name of Blackout's original map--is a more traditional battle royale, Alcatraz makes slight changes to the formula. Instead of deploying from a drop ship that travels in a straight line at the start of a match, in Alcatraz, your team deploys from portals that appear at random points above the island. There's no collapsing zone wall either, and zombies seem to be more plentiful as well.

Like Apex Legends (and, soon, Fortnite), Alcatraz also features respawns. After falling in battle, you're allowed to redeploy after 30 seconds have passed, and you can respawn up to five times total before being permanently eliminated. Also like Respawn's battle royale, Alcatraz supports a smaller collection of players, all of whom are grouped into teams. All in all, there are 40 players on the map, each in a four-person squad for a total of 10 teams.

Alcatraz also features predetermined locations where you can buy firearms to use. New weapons are made available at these locations every 30 seconds, making them ideal for setting up ambushes. Alcatraz is also more vertical-focused in comparison to Blackout. The entire island is basically one large hill, with the Cell Block landmark dominating the topmost point. Numerous paths are available for teams to reach different elevations, ranging from climbable cliffs to a slow-moving tram.

"Alcatraz is a small island, and that means super fast-paced, frenetically fun fighting," Treyarch studio design director David Vonderhaar said in a video describing the new map. Treyarch producer Miles Leslie added, "And our Zombies players might recognize this, but we've handcrafted Alcatraz for the Blackout experience."