Call of Duty: Black Ops 6arrives at a perilous moment for the franchise having suffered back-to-back-to-back disappointments that have left the fanbase in disarray.Call of Duty: Vanguardfelt rushed and unfocused,Modern Warfare IIabandoned the core principles of the franchise andModern Warfare III(at launch) felt like an overpriced DLC. There’s a lot of pressure onCall of Duty: Black Ops 6, Treyarch and Raven Software to get things right, especially given Black Ops’ stellar reputation and a long four-year development cycle. Things are different now, though. Treyarch has had to adopt Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare engine and integrate their game into the heavily-maligned CoD HQ.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6has a lot of people to please after numerous years of letdowns. DoesCall of Duty: Black Ops 6right the ship and deliver one of the best Call of Duty experiences in years, or does it crumble under pressure?
The Spy Who Call of Duty’d Me
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6: All Campaign Safehouse Upgrades
Here are all the operator perks and upgrades available in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6takes place in the 1990s during the Gulf War and follows the events ofBlack Ops Cold WarandBlack Ops II’s1980s section. The campaign follows Frank Woods and his protégé Troy Marshall as they become embroiled in a secret plot to shift the balance of power following the discovery of the shadowy organization, Pantheon. Forced to go rogue with limited resources and allies, it’s a race against time to uncover Pantheon’s secrets and prevent them from enacting their plan.
The Black Ops series is generally regarded as the sub-franchise with the best campaigns (minusBlack Ops III), effortlessly blending mind-bending twists, likable characters and spectacle into a solid 8-10 hour package.Black Ops 6is no different thanks to its well-rounded cast of characters and diverse set of missions. Taking a cue fromBlack Ops Cold War, each main mission is interrupted by a trip to a safehouse where players can interact with Woods, Marshall, Adler and other allies, further personifying the game’s characters. It’s fair to say thatBlack Ops 6probably has the strongest cast of characters in any Call of Duty title.
While the game uses the Gulf War to ground its setting, the campaign doesn’t delve much into it. Rather, it focuses more on building its own spy-thriller story involving secret organizations, catastrophic weapons, a protagonist with a mysterious past and a twist villain.Black Ops 6nearly pulls it off, providing hours of intriguing plot threads and speculation about Pantheon and your player character, Case. The campaign drops the ball at the end, however, opting to go for genre cliches as the main answer or outright dropping certain plot threads.
Where the campaign truly shines is in its missions. Raven Software has gone fully experimental withBlack Ops 6, crafting a unique experience that blends together different genres with traditional Call of Duty spectacle. One mission puts you in an open desert with a main objective and side objectives to pursue at your leisure, while another sets you loose at a political event to dig up dirt on a corrupt senator. You’ll participate in an elaborately-staged heist and explore abandoned facilities all while under the influence of a mysterious bioweapon. So, even if the story does drop the ball at the end,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6still delivers an impressive campaign that challenges what a Call of Duty campaign can be.
A Dash of Black Ops II, a Sprinkle of Black Ops III, a Dose of Black Ops Cold War
As good as the campaign is inBlack Ops 6, the real meat and potatoes of a Call of Duty game has always been its multiplayer component. It’s where players will spend most of their time, meaning Treyarch must nail it for the game to sustain its long-term appeal. Thankfully,Black Ops 6’smultiplayer component is a fun, thrilling and arcadey experience that embraces the elements Treyarch does best and shedding most of the controversial mechanics ofModern Warfare IIandModern Warfare III.
In many ways,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6feels like an extension of Black Ops’ top entries. The overall arcadey feel of the gunplay is reminiscent ofBlack Ops Cold War, trading the ultra-realism of the Modern Warfare games for quick, snappy gunplay, and it’s worth the tradeoff. Call of Duty:Black Ops 6is, simply put, fun to play. All the weapons feel good and have their own unique personality, a Black Ops staple. Perks have returned to their basic state, making them simple to understand and utilize when building your class. Gunsmith and its attachments have been toned down to not be overwhelming. Kitting out your weapon is as easy as deciding what stats you want to improve and then picking the attachment that benefits it.
Black Ops 6’sbig addition to the multiplayer formula is Omnimovement, or the ability to sprint, slide and dive in any direction. The mechanics come off as a boots-on-the-ground approach to Call of Duty:Black Ops III’smultidirectional advanced movement. In action, Omnimovement vastly speeds up the gameplay and opens new opportunities to escape enemy fire or outflank enemies. It’s an overall positive addition, particularly for those who miss advanced movement, but it does have a negative impact on some maps.
It’s clear that Treyarch had hoped to imitateBlack Ops II’swinning formula for designing maps. The classic three-lane design, very few height levels and only select power positions have made numerousBlack Ops IImaps instant classics. While it’s too early to say if anyBlack Ops 6maps will become classics, at least half of them are fun to play on. Derelict, Protocol, Scud and Skyline all feel like classic Black Ops with their designs and aesthetics. Even Subsonic, with its small, chaotic design, still manages to produce a Black Ops feel that is fun. It also suffers from the quick pace of Omnimovement, however, allowing quick spawners to rush for quick kills at the start of the match.
As much asBlack Ops 6attempts to leave Infinity Ward’s poor design choices behind, it doesn’t remove all of them. The awful CoD HQ launcher and Hulu UI designs are toned down, but still here. The spawn algorithm, while improved from the beta, is still too prone to spawning you in harm’s way. Nowhere is Infinity Ward’s influence felt more, however, than the design of half the maps. Interactable doors, multiple height levels and so many windows turn areas on Red Card, Lowtown and Payback into literal kill zones. Random buildings and wide-open lanes on Rewind, Vault and Vorkuta make finding enemy players a chore. Finally, Omnimovement combined with the Shipment-like design of Babylon sees matches frequently turn into nightmares.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6multiplayer is the most fun, well-playing multiplayer in years when it’s acting and playing like a Treyarch game. Omnimovement is a great boots-on-the-ground take on advanced movement and features more strategic purpose than bunny-hopping and slide-cancelling. It’s just disappointing that nearly half the core maps don’t feel like classic Treyarch maps.
Gimme One Bite
A Black Ops game isn’t complete with Zombies andBlack Ops 6has its fair share of Zombies. Round-based Zombies is back with two launch maps, Liberty Falls and Terminus, after the mode’s brief affair with an open-world design inModern Warfare III. Liberty Falls, set in West Virginia, is geared towards newer players with a friendlier design and less things to keep track of. Terminus, meanwhile, is a much more intricate map that requires more involvement from players to uncover all its secrets.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Beta Impressions: The Black Ops Magic is Here, Still Needs Polishing Before Launch
With the beta over, is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 ready for launch or does it need more time in the oven?
While Round-Based like the older games,Black Ops 6Zombies takes a lot of cues fromBlack Ops Cold War. Players can spawn in with any weapon they like and start blasting zombies with the goal of working your way towards the power station or Pack-a-Punch machine so that the real work can begin on completing each map’s litany of Easter Eggs.
Like multiplayer, the biggest addition toBlack Ops 6Zombies is the introduction of Omnimovement, a mechanic that is highly beneficial to avoiding the undead. Both maps provide ample space to make use of the mechanic. While Omnimovement might make the early game match feel easy,Black Ops 6does a great job of ramping up the difficulty in later rounds, making it a great tool for survival, yet not a complete crutch you’re able to rely on to survive.
Zombies probably won’t ever go back to the classic formula of only spawning with a pistol. That horror of surviving long enough to get good weapons is likely forever gone, but whatCall of Duty: Black Ops 6does present is a thrilling mode filled with secrets to uncover, bosses to take down and a personal drive to do better each playtime.
Closing Comments:
There’s a good reason why Treyarch and Black Ops are so beloved by the Call of Duty community. The sub-franchise usually delivers the stronger campaigns, multiplayer and third modes in the series.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6does all of those things, especially when compared to the more recent Call of Dutys. The campaign, from Raven Software, may drop the ball at the end with its story, but it’s filled with fantastic characters and a wide variety of missions that help elevate it into must-play territory.
The multiplayer brings back the arcadey, fast-paced action missing from the past two years and takes numerous systems back to basics for the better. It’s unfortunate that a lot of Infinity Ward’s poor design decisions infect so much of the experience, but the core gunplay, Omnimovement and about half the maps still help make this feel like a proper Treyarch Black Ops experience. Zombies is back to round-based and is helped by Omnimovement and smart map design to create a thrilling experience.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6carries on the legacy of the Black Ops franchise well and is a strong return to form for the long-running series.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Version Reviewed: PlayStation 5
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the next entry in Activision’s FPS franchise, and it is expected to launch in 2024.
