Lately, Call of Duty has been looking like a different game with a series of promotional crossovers that have introduced some rather funny and immersion-breaking skins. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is no exception, it even has anime-style skins now. If you don’t like those, then tough luck because it seems the devs are not about to stop.
The word came from Miles Leslie, Associate Creative Director of Treyarch, the studio responsible for Black Ops 6. Leslie recently had an interview with Dexerto, she and the dev team thought of the silly skins as no harm to Call of Duty as a whole since the out-of-place crossover skins are ‘fun’ and something players find enjoyable.
“Fun always comes first for us. Of course, we want to stay grounded in the DNA that makes a Black Ops game unique when it comes to core gameplay, but we also like to break the rules if it’s going to maximize fun for players,” explains Miles Leslie.
Leslie also argued that Black Ops has always been a sub-series for the Call of Duty franchise and has always been open to some wacky and unconventional features and designs. It’s worth noting that the very first Call of Duty: Black Ops was the one that popularized the famed Zombies Mode in the franchise.
However, Zombies Mode was first introduced in Call of Duty: World at War as Nazi Zombies, so it wasn’t originally a Black Ops initiative. Since then, the Black Ops series and Call of Duty in general have been flexible with crossovers and promotional material.
The Skins Appear to Sell Well
Of course, the more obvious explanation and the elephant in the room is how Activision Blizzard has sold a jaw-dropping $1.2 billion from microtransactions alone in just three months back in 2021. Back then, microtransactions (the bulk of which are skins) made up 61 percent of Activision Blizzard’s income.
It’s not clear just how much Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 earns through its skins and other microtransactions. We might have to wait until next year for those sales figures to be made public. However, with the rate at which Treyarch is implementing the skins, you can probably get an idea of the financial model’s success.
On a more positive note, Miles Leslie of Treyarch assures Call of Duty fans that the campaigns will retain the realistic military plot and angle and that the outlandish cosmetics will remain in multiplayer.
