Black Ops 4's battle royale mode will be capped at 120 fps at launch

Activision said in August that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will support uncapped framerates on the PC. And it will—eventually. Treyarch explained in the Black Ops 4 subreddit today that the Blackout battle royale mode will actually be capped at 120 fps at launch, after which—if all goes well—the cap will be gently eased off. 

"During the Blackout Beta, we made the decision to cap it at 90fps to monitor performance and online stability. The reason for this approach was that as a Beta we had a lot of testing to do. It made sense for getting the game right for the whole community, and we were happy with the end result and the data we pulled from this approach," Treyarch said. 

"We’ve come a long way since the Beta, thanks to all your feedback, but we still want to roll things out carefully." 

Because the framerate impacts server load, and the goal is to ensure that everything runs as smoothly as possible right from the start, Blackout will max out at 120 fps at launch. Once Activision and Treyarch are convinced that the mode is stable, the cap will be increased to 144 fps, and if it continues to tick along smoothly the plan is to remove the cap entirely "within the first few days." 

The framerate cap will only be in place for Black Ops 4's Blackout mode; Zombies and conventional multiplayer modes will be uncapped at launch. "This is the right plan to ensure a smooth, playable game for the whole community out of the gate," Treyarch said.   

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 comes out on October 12. Preloading will begin on Battle.net on October 9.