Activision subsidiary Treyarch announced that it still plans to release mod tools for the PC version of
Call of Duty: Black Ops, and that it hopes to make them available to the public for free this May.
Treyarch has not revealed many details on what the suite will offer, but mod tools traditionally enable users to manipulate and create content, such as maps or gameplay modes, then share them with others. The tools could provide a free alternative to the official
$15 map packs made for
Black Ops since its launch last November.
The company's technology director Cesar Stastny, who
tweeted the planned release date for the mod tools last night, said last August that Treyarch
intends to include a developer console in the suite, which provides more advanced game configurations to users.
Black Ops will be the first
Call of Duty title to feature mod tools since
World at War in 2008. Infinity Ward, also a subsidiary of the series' publisher Activision, chose not to implement mods or dedicated servers (another feature Treyarch reintroduced in
Black Ops) in
Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, much to the dismay of many PC gamers.