'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Rolling Out Early to Avoid 'Red Dead Redemption 2' Launch on Oct. 26?
"Red Redemption 2" finally has a confirmed release date: Oct. 26, 2018. As one of the most anticipated titles this year, other studios are paying close attention to this announcement, which may have prompted Activision to reveal a launch date for their "Black Ops 4": Oct. 12.
Activision and Treyarch have just announced the launch date for "Black Ops 4," also stylized as "Black Ops IIII" for some reason, via a Twitch stream that hardly anyone expected was coming up, as Forbes Contributor Erik Kain pointed out.
Aside from a launch date set for Oct. 12 later this year, Activision has also just announced a Community Reveal Event for May 17, as the publisher posted on the official Call of Duty Twitter handle last Friday.
The publisher has posted no other information for "Black Ops 4" as of this time, which is somewhat out of character for Activision. Furthermore, this will also be the first time since "Call of Duty 2" that a "Call of Duty" game is coming out in October — before this announcement, every other title before this one has come out in early November.
One good reason to put the latest "Black Ops" a month earlier than the usual schedule, earlier than it's been in years, in fact, is to try to launch ahead of the upcoming "Red Dead Redemption 2" on Oct. 26.
With the Western-themed RPG already shaping up to be one of the bigger mega-releases this year, despite Rockstar games taking their time to launch the game to the point of delaying it, Activision may have decided to dodge the Oct. 26 release date by launching their game a couple of weeks ahead.
Whether this decision by Activision to come out earlier than the holiday season to avoid "Red Dead Redemption" will pay off, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, "Red Dead" fans will be getting ready for late October when the second game finally comes out.