For a brief period last year I thought Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's battle royale mode was going to take off. Blackout looked like Playerunknown's Battlegrounds but played like Call of Duty--a perfect combination, I thought, for those who wanted a more grounded battle royale experience without all of PUBG's jank. And then Apex Legends happened. Respawn's battle royale folded in many of the same improvements as Blackout--more mobility, snappier shootings, better inventory management. Oh, and it was free.

You'd think Epic's new storefront and The Game Awards would've swept up all the week's news, but no! Turns out plenty happened in and among this week's bombshell announcements: Below surprise-announced a release date in the near future, DayZ preps to emerge from Early Access at long last, Call of Duty starts selling Black Ops 4 sans-zombies, and Just Cause 4 adds a Getting Over It Easter egg. This is gaming news for December 3 to 7. It's not the same type of free game trial we like to highlight in this column, but if you're looking to play something this weekend Square Enix is now offering an extended demo of the recently released Shadow of the Tomb Raider. You can grab it from the Steam page and play the opening bit for free, which I assume includes the "Day of the Dead" and maybe the first tomb, a.k.a. the bit I played at the reveal event in April. I wasn't in love with Shadow of the Tomb Raider, but if you've been on the fence this is a good chance to get a taste of the game. Prey is one of 2017's best games--and one of 2018's as well, thanks to its ingenious Mooncrash update earlier this year.

With the advent of battle royale games like PUBG and Fortnite, there's plenty of evidence that modern tastes in first-person shooters are changing and fragmenting, but Dice's long-running Battlefield series has always catered for shooter enthusiasts who like to feel that they are participating in a realistic facsimile of a war. The good news is that Battlefield V takes that experience to new heights. It's a technical tour de force, taking in second world war settings that vary from North African deserts and French villages to a Rotterdam reduced to rubble, with totally convincing looks, sound design and weapon-feel. Important elements of the game are conspicuous by their absence at launch. Tides of War – the game's live service, which aims to make you feel part of a long-running, ever-evolving offensive – won't arrive until early December, and it'll be March before battle royale mode Firestorm is added. In this age of constant patching and regular expansions, it's valid to question whether some games will ever truly be completed, but at launch, Battlefield V feels only 70-80% finished.

It's weird to think of Call of Duty as an underdog. It was once the world's biggest entertainment franchise, earning billions of dollars every year for its publisher Activision. But in recent times the military shooter has fallen out of favour, usurped by the bright, glossy thrills of Overwatch and Destiny and the more family-friendly multiplayer charms of Minecraft and Fortnite. At first glance, Black Ops 4 looks like a sad anachronism, desperate for relevance. The single-player campaign has been jettisoned, leaving us with just the multiplayer experience.

Big-time athletes were on hand for the reveal of "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4" and sounded off on who they would pick to be on their Black Ops team. With "Fortnite" batting leadoff and many heavy hitters on deck this fall, video game companies are poised to score a new record sales mark this year. During the first six months of 2018, consumers spent $19.5 billion on video game software, consoles and accessories, according to market tracking firm The NPD Group. That's 40 percent higher than during the same period last year, which over the full 12 months resulted in a spending record of $36 billion. By the end of 2018, the U.S. video game industry could tally at least $40 billion, says Mat Piscatella, a games industry analyst at The NPD Group.

Call of Duty: WWII was a breath of fresh air after the weirdness what was Infinite Warfare. The return to historical battles was a welcome change after a (thankfully) brief trip to space. For 2018, the series is back in the hands of Treyarch, which means a new installment of Black Ops. The studio, along with publisher Activision, already took the wraps off the game a few weeks ago. Perhaps most importantly, the duo revealed that the single-player campaign would be replaced by a PUBG-esque battle royale mode.

It's one of the best-selling games every year, but in 2018 the franchise is making some of the biggest changes ever in its 14-year history. Activision and Treyarch recently announced Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, a game with some notable additions and one big subtraction. Black Ops 4 will be the first full Call of Duty game to ship without a single-player campaign, instead leaning on traditional multiplayer, the cooperative zombie mode and the new battle royale mode "Blackout." I recently spoke with Activision's head of Call of Duty Rob Kostich, who said that the Black Ops sub-franchise was the right opportunity for branching out from the usual campaign, multiplayer and zombies format. "Black Ops has been really unique from a franchise, perspective," says Kostich. "The campaign in Black Ops 3 was always designed to be played cooperatively, designed to bring people together in new and unique ways. This opportunity of battle royale came up at that point: we took a look at what we had and where we wanted to go and thought this was a great opportunity."

EA and DICE pulled the curtain off of Battlefield 5 today, bringing the large-scale shooter back to World War 2 after its successful foray into World War 1. It looks, from what we've seen so far, like classic Battlefield with some new twists and the promise of continuing stories told over the course of several months, something made possible by the fact that the game will have no paid maps/modes. Unlike most World War 2 games, the developer wants to place the focus on some of the less well-known battles of the conflict -- most of what we saw today looked European, but there would always be room for the Pacific theater later. The most interesting part of the reveal was probably the new Combined Arms mode, a cooperative mode that places the player in a squad of 4 and complete various tasks before extracting: from what it sounds like, there's a risk/reward mechanic about whether to press on or extract, something that sounds a little like The Division's Dark Zone. There was a rumor that Battlefield 5 would have a battle royale mode to match Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, not to mention Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. That rumor turns out to be true and not true. If players manage to fight to a stalemate in the Grand Operations mode, it will trigger a final, fourth round called Final Stand, where resources are running low and soldiers are left with one clip, fighting until "the last man standing," in the words of the developer.

We've already seen Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, and now it's time to get a look at the competition. EA, DICE and The Daily Show host Trevor Noah are set to reveal Battlefield 5 today at 4:00 p.m. ET, pulling back the curtain on EA's flagship game for the fall release season. We know some things about Battlefield 5, but there are some big questions as well. The first thing to watch for is the setting: it's widely rumored that DICE will be following Battlefield 1 with a game set in World War 2, an idea that the developer appeared to confirm with a teaser featuring WW2-specific iconography. The series started in 2002 with Battlefield 1942, adding in the franchise's signature large-scale combat to what was at the time the standard setting for a AAA shooter.

The latest title in the multimillion-selling Call of Duty series will abandon the once-staple single-player Campaign and add a Fortnite-style battle royale mode, Activision has revealed. At a unveiling event in Los Angeles on Thursday, the company showed off Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 for the first time, promising major changes to the franchise, now in its 15th year. The latest title in the Cold War conspiracy-fuelled Black Ops series will lose the futuristic elements of its predecessor with no wall-running or jetpacks, returning – like last year's Call of Duty: WWII – to "boots on the ground" combat. The major revelation, however, is that there will be no narrative-based single-player campaign. Clearly inspired by the modern and hugely successful shooter Overwatch, the emphasis will be on social play, teaming up with friends and competing online.