Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Server Tick Rate Reduced Compared to Beta, Treyarch Responds

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC has been out for over a week now and it appears that developer Treyarch has skimped a few corners in the making of its multiplayer shooter. According to reports from Reddit and YouTube, it appears that the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 server tick rate - the number of times per second an online game produces and processes data in relation to server - has been downgraded by almost 66 percent. During the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 beta, the server tick rate was 60Hz while in the final game it is 20Hz. This was first reported on Reddit and verified by net code analyst YouTuber Battle(non)sense.

Developer Treyarch took to the Black Ops 4 subreddit to respond.

"We've also noticed a lot of discussion around network performance over the past couple of days and wanted to take a moment to address this directly," a post from the studio reads. "We're constantly working to optimise the game, and particularly network performance, to ensure the highest quality online experience for our players. For a game launch with as massive a population as ours hitting so many global servers at once, we configure our infrastructure to ensure game stability as the highest priority over all other factors."

This essentially is an admission that Treyarch has compromised the server tick rate for better performance. Though it might not stay this way.

"Now that we're past the initial launch of the game, we are focusing on fine-tuning network performance around the globe, using the real-world data that we have collected," the post continues. "Over the course of the next two weeks, we will roll out several updates to our network setup that will continue to improve upon the experience of our players since launch." 

In our Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 review we stated that  if you can stomach its ridiculous day one patch, lack of single-player, and its high price, you'll be treated to one of the better multiplayer experiences in recent memory. For many though, the entry barrier may just be too high to bother.