Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out now, and it includes the franchise's first battle royale mode, Blackout. In Blackout, players have a variety of characters to choose from, but many of them have to be unlocked first. Unlocking new characters in Blackout isn't exactly straightforward and at the time of this writing, the exact requirements to unlock many of the characters is unknown. However, while the exact requirements for many characters are unknown, we do know where to start.

To unlock characters in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, players usually have to find special items that will unlock a set of Character Missions. These Character Missions need to be completed in that same match, or players will fail to unlock the character. Furthermore, players will have to keep the character item in their inventory for the duration of the match, or again, they will fail to unlock the character.

To find these items, players have to check Supply Boxes, Supply Drops, dead enemies, and dead zombies. After finding the item, players are free to start focusing on the challenges to start unlocking new characters.

Here is a list of all the unlockable characters in Blackout:

call of duty blackout

While it's true that the vast majority of the characters listed above will require players to first find a special item and then complete a set of challenges, there are some that are unlocked in other ways. For example, Airborne, Battle Hardened, Frogman, Ranger, and Seal are all unlocked by reaching certain Echelon levels. Players can raise their Echelon level by getting kills, placing high in matches, winning, and completing challenges.

There's also Shadow Man, who can't actually be unlocked by doing anything in-game. On the contrary, Shadow Man is only available to Black Ops 4 players that decide to shell out the cash for the expensive season pass, so anyone looking for a complete Blackout experience should keep that in mind.

Considering how hard it is to actually find the character's associated item and then complete their challenge, players shouldn't get discouraged if they find unlocking characters in Black Ops 4 to be a slow process. Some of the challenges seem a little on the ridiculous side, though, so maybe Treyarch will make unlocking some characters a bit easier in the future, in addition to fixing other issues, like the emote exploit.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.