Despite initially announcing the game for next-gen hardware only, and claiming that the series would be fully embracing next-gen as of this year, Activision now appears to have backpedaled on that stance with Call of Duty: Black Ops III. They’ve just announced that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be made after all, with the last-gen versions being a collaboration between Spider-Man developer, Beenox, and another outfit, Mercenary Technology.
Along with the expected graphical downgrade on last-gen consoles, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will also be reducing the co-op count of the campaign from four players to two players. It’s also implied that other features from the game’s main PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will also end up being cut on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, though the co-op reduction is the only explicitly confirmed compromise so far. The fundamental campaign and online multiplayer suites of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will naturally be present on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 though.
Even if last-gen console ports are happening however, Activision has quashed another set of speculation in the process of announcing Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 ports for Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Apparently, despite the company seemingly giving people ways of importing their Nintendo Network ID’s into Call of Duty: Black Ops III somehow, a Wii U version of Call of Duty: Black Ops III will not be made, and the game will be entirely skipping Nintendo’s console. This is a bummer, though not totally unexpected, given that last year’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare also skipped Wii U entirely, despite 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts managing to eke out a Wii U port, even with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One then being brand new releases. The previous Treyarch-developed Call of Duty game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, also served as a Wii U launch title in 2012.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III takes place in a dystopian future of 2065, where soldiers are giving nanotech-driven genetic enhancement, and a worldwide defense grid has rendered all air support useless. Players will follow a team of Black Ops soldiers, who are attempting to discover the reason behind the first lost contact of a Black Ops team in American history.
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