Treyarch continues to do interesting things with its latest Call of Duty game, announcing plans today to update the PC version of Black Ops 3 with a suite of mapping and modding tools next year, months after its November release.
That would make Black Ops 3 the first Call of Duty game to ship with official mod tools in quite some time, though development director Cesar Stastny was quick to note in a blog post that "this is software development, so things don't always work out as planned."
This also more clearly distinguishes Treyarch's latest project from long-running Battlefield-building competitor DICE, which stopped offering official mod support for its flagship franchise with the release of Battlefield 3.
"We're afraid of all the things that can come with releasing the code," said DICE's Karl Magnus Troedsson at GDC Europe in 2012, explaining that offering official mod tools was dicey because it could make the game more vulnerable to hackers.
Nevertheless, Treyarch aims to begin testing Black Ops 3 mod and mapping tools in closed alpha next March.
The studio has previously demonstrated a willingness to experiment with the development of its latest Call of Duty game by noting that all Black Ops 3 campaign levels will be playable right from the get-go, in any order you please.