If you think you’re so good at Call of Duty that the world needs to watch you play while you narrate each headshot, then this new feature is for you.
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“From the beginning of development with Call of Duty: Black Ops II, the team has been pushing boundaries on every front to offer Call of Duty fans things that they haven’t been able to do before,” said Mark Lamia, the studio head of Treyarch. “With our competitive play and eSports initiatives, we wanted to deliver live streaming capabilities built right into Call of Duty:Black Ops II, because Call of Duty is not only fun and exciting to play, but we believe it will be just as exciting to watch. By making the capability of live streaming as accessible as possible to our fans, straight from a player’s console without the need for any additional hardware or sophisticated setups, we are empowering our fans to share their multiplayer experiences.”
Online streaming is a big aspect of the eSports competitive-gaming community. This is just one more feature that will make Black Ops II popular with that crowd.
To stream to YouTube Live, Black Ops II players will need a verified YouTube account and a valid Call of Duty Elite account. Thankfully, COD Elite is now a free service, so this should be a relatively low barrier of entry for anyone who is thinking about broadcasting their gaming.
Black Ops II will also patch in the gamer’s camera and microphone so players can see and hear the player while they stream each and every killstreak reward.
Activision previously stated that it is attempting to bring Call of Duty Elite to the Wii U. Until it figures that out, Nintendo’s new hardware won’t benefit from this feature.