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Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 vs Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is an FPS game from Raven Software (2018) while Call of Duty: Black Ops III is an FPS game from Treyarch (2015).

Quick answer: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has the higher Metacritic, 82 to 73.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

2018 · Raven Software

82Metacritic

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

2015 · Treyarch

7.5GamingPickz Score

$59.99

Steam: Very Positive

What each one is

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is filed under FPS. In contrast, Call of Duty: Black Ops III under FPS.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is a 2018 first-person shooter game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. It is the fifteenth installment of the Call of Duty series and the fifth entry in the Black Ops sub-series, following Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015). The game was released on October 12, 2018, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.

Description from Wikipedia

Call of Duty: Black Ops III

Call of Duty®: Black Ops III Zombies Chronicles Edition includes the full base game plus the Zombies Chronicles content expansion.

Description from its Steam store page

Story, characters and reception

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4
Plot

Characters and settings The Multiplayer and Blackout modes take place in the 2040s, and are centered around the Specialists, a group of global elite soldiers hired by researcher Savannah Mason-Meyer ( Evangeline Lilly ), granddaughter of Alex Mason ( Sam Worthington ). The initial Specialist roster includes: infantryman Donnie "Ruin" Walsh (Christian Rummel), demolitions expert Erin "Battery" Baker (Morla Gorrondona), Medical Sergeant Jarrah "Crash"… (Wikipedia)

Characters

The Multiplayer and Blackout modes take place in the 2040s, and are centered around the Specialists, a group of global elite soldiers hired by researcher Savannah Mason-Meyer ( Evangeline Lilly ), granddaughter of Alex Mason ( Sam Worthington ). The initial Specialist roster includes: infantryman Donnie "Ruin" Walsh (Christian Rummel), demolitions expert Erin "Battery" Baker (Morla Gorrondona), Medical Sergeant Jarrah "Crash" Bazley ( Mark Coles Smith ),… (Wikipedia)

Reception

Pre-release Upon rumors emerging that Black Ops 4 would not have a single-player campaign mode, reactions from the Call of Duty community were negative. The official confirmation by Treyarch of the absence of a campaign led to many fans expressing their disappointment. In response to the criticism, Dan Bunting, studio co-head at Treyarch, stated in an interview with Eurogamer that "We are delivering so much more of what players spend most of their time… (Wikipedia)

Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Plot

Campaign Forty years after the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops II , the world is in the midst of a Third Cold War between the Winslow Accord (WA) and the Common Defense Pact (CDP). On October 27, 2065, the Player ( Ben Browder / Abby Brammell ) and their partner Jacob Hendricks (Sean Douglas) of WA Black Ops are deployed to Ethiopia to rescue the Egyptian Prime Minister and other hostages from the CDP-aligned Nile River Coalition (NRC). The extraction… (Wikipedia)

Reception

Critical response Reception According to review aggregator Metacritic , Call of Duty: Black Ops III received "generally favorable" critic reviews for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and "mixed or average" critic reviews for PC. GameSpot awarded it a score of 7 out of 10, saying, " Black Ops III doesn't offer anything remarkable to the series, but does just enough to maintain the Call of Duty status quo. The franchise, however slowly, continues its inexorable… (Wikipedia)

At a glance

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4Call of Duty: Black Ops III
GamingPickz Score—7.5/10
Steam rating—Very Positive (85%, 232,717)
Critic aggregate82/10073/100
PriceUnknown$59.99
Install size—100 GB
Steam DeckUntestedplayable
Released20182015
DeveloperRaven SoftwareTreyarch

Prices and Steam ratings are read live and move over time.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 vs Call of Duty: Black Ops III, point by point

Each facet side by side. A round is marked won only where a figure settles it; feel and "which is better" carry no mark, because no number we hold decides them.

  1. Genre and premise

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4FPS game
    Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIFPS game

    What each is filed as. Each game describes itself in full above; we do not judge a premise.

  2. How it plays

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4No descriptive tags
    Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIZombies, FPS, Shooter

    The tags players apply most, in order of votes. A read on feel, not a verdict.

  3. Reception

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 ✓Metacritic 82
    Call of Duty: Black Ops IIIMetacritic 73

    Metacritic's critic aggregate, from the game's Wikipedia reception where it was never on Steam.

  4. Content and scale

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4—
    Call of Duty: Black Ops III232,717 reviews · 10 add-ons · 100 GB

    Reach and footprint, not quality: more reviews or a bigger install is not a better game.

  5. Price

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 4Unknown
    Call of Duty: Black Ops III$59.99

    Read live from Steam and subject to change.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 takes 1 of the marked rounds to 0. That is only what a number can decide, not which you will enjoy more.

Which to pick, by what you want

  • The better reviewed of the two: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (Metacritic 82)

Where they differ

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is also

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is also

MultiplayerZombiesFPSShooterActionFirst-Person

Tags players apply to one game and not the other.

Difficulty and who each is for

By the tags players apply, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is middle-of-the-road on difficulty. Call of Duty: Black Ops III is middle-of-the-road on difficulty.

System requirements, side by side

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4Call of Duty: Black Ops III
Minimum GPU—NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 470 @ 1GB / ATI® Radeon™ HD 6970 @ 1GB
Minimum CPU—Intel® Core™ i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz / AMD Phenom™ II X4 810 @ 2.60 GHz
Minimum RAM—6 GB
Install size—100 GB

Can your PC run them? Check each against your own kit: Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 · Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

Accessibility features

Steam store pages declare 0 accessibility features for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and 1 for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. A declaration is a floor, not a review.

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Common questions

How different are Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops III in scope?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 lists little scope data. Call of Duty: Black Ops III has drawn 232,717 Steam reviews, ships 10 add-ons and installs in 100 GB.

Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops III better?

Neither carries enough reviews for us to score it reliably, so we do not call a winner. The table above shows what each does have.

Which is cheaper, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops III?

One or both do not have a current listed price, so a straight comparison is not possible. See the table above.

Should I get Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 or Call of Duty: Black Ops III?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has the higher Metacritic, 82 to 73. It also depends on what you want: the "which to pick" section above calls out which is cheaper, lighter on storage, better on a Steam Deck and the safer bet by weight of reviews.

Do you rank one above the other for a fee?

No. Neither game, nor anyone else, pays for placement or a verdict here. The order and every figure come out of the same public data the rest of the site uses.

All comparisons

How we compare, and what we will not do

The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment (adjusted for sample size), the critic aggregate and popularity, computed by the same code every ranked list on this site uses. The Steam rating label is Valve's own, reconstructed from the positive percentage and review count. Prices are read live. We do not write an opinion of which game is "better": we report the numbers and say which wins each measurable question above.

More on each