Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is doing what the vast majority of shooters do not: offer an FOV slider on consoles. This is one of several changes made based on alpha feedback, and will be available in the game’s beta and beyond. An FOV slider, for those unfamiliar, allows the player to widen their peripheral vision. A wider FOV means you get to see more around the edges of the screen, but makes targets at a distance smaller, and the opposite is true for narrow fields of view. Treyarch shared a video showing it off briefly, and it looks to start from 60 degrees on the low end and go all the way up to 120 degrees. The setting’s description even states what the FOV values are for both vertical and horizontal as you adjust. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Manage cookie settings That’s it. That’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/aUHOre2li7 — Treyarch Studios (@Treyarch) October 7, 2020 There is, however, a warning that wider FOVs could negatively impact the performance by lowering the framerate. This is the main reason why most shooters eschew offering the setting on consoles, even when they do on PC. The default FOV in console shooters is typically stuck to a low value to ensure a smooth framerate, but that sometimes puts console players at a disadvantage in cross-play situations against PC. The performance cost remains to be seen, particularly on the low-powered base consoles, but at least players actually have a choice. The Black Ops Cold War beta kicks off later today for PS4 pre-orders, before becoming open on Saturday. Another session is scheduled for next week, available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The beta includes a fair bit more content compared to the alpha, not to mention a massive slew of technical, art and balance changes. The full game is out November 13.
