Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is already a record-breaker for its trailer’s views, and it will bring big changes to the franchise with its new gameplay mechanics. The game is set to feature a new way of playing shooter with Omnimovement, allowing players to run, slide, and dive in any direction even if they’re not facing that way. The Black Ops 6 new movement system turns the game into an action movie, but Omnimovement might hurt the causal PvP players.
It was with MW2 that Activision changed the pace of Call of Duty by delivering more realism to its gameplay. The movement system for Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 removed many things from the previous games, including slide canceling, slide shooting, slide jumping, and quick mantling. This was where Warzone’s Gameplay was starting to feel like a dusty tactical shooter.
However, despite the disappointing Campaign and Zombies, Modern Warfare 3 removed the bad teeth and brought us the best movement system in many years. The game is balanced for players who enjoy camping in a base and go all out on confusing the opponent with the quick movement and slide cancel. This is an upgraded version of MW 2019, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard‘s movement system that I’ve enjoyed so far.
But with Black Ops 6, that balance may perish soon enough. The problem with sliding, running, and dive-shooting in any direction is that it creates a massive skill gap. If I play Call of Duty 7 hours a day, sure, there ain’t a single problem with being able to dive and blow up the enemy’s head with a shotgun in mid-air. But what if I’m just back from work/school and want to play Black Ops 6 to get my mind out of the daily stress?
You start the game and see everyone running and jumping sideways in a super fast-paced Multiplayer. This is a big change and presumably very hard to adapt to. Sure, you can turn off the Omnimovement in Black Ops 6, but the ones that train and shift up to the new movement system will probably have the upper hand in almost every 1v1 encounter. The bottom line is that the sweat lords will thrive in every lobby, leaving the casual players behind with a sky-high skill gap.
Now this is all from what we’ve seen so far. Not all players have experienced the new movement system in Black Ops 6, and not every content creator invited to Treyarch for a gameplay test says that Omnimovement is bad. I’m sure there’ll be adjustments to the pace of these movement mechanics that’d better suit the casual players as the major part of the community. And that is the best thing I hope to see later during the Black Ops 6 public beta tests.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is due to release on October 25, 2024.
