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Another year, another Call of Duty. But if you’re sick of the rinse and repeat that has become so commonplace for the franchise, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. Oh, boy, this is the comeback we were waiting for. Experiencing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 after MW3 is like jumping from a Civic to a Bugatti… with a bunch of factory extras thrown in. There’s Zombies, Multiplayer, and a genuinely brilliant Campaign that arguably marks a high for the whole series.
Call of Duty has come a long way with its every-year releases. Some titles are neat, some are middling, and a few others are buried below the standards defined by CoD itself. There’s a cyclical nature to CoD’s success –good, bad, mid, good, etc–, and last year was probably the worst for many players and OG fans of the game series. However, Black Ops is here on the rescue scene.
The golden era of MW and BO from 2007 to 2012 was probably the only time we had the best consecutive Call of Duty games for many years in a row. And while Black Ops Cold War became one fine Call of Duty example years ago, Treyarch has outdone itself with Black Ops 6. The latest Treyarch craft delivers a lengthy puzzled Campaign with many mission varieties and options, chaotic Multiplayer, and a Cold War-perfected Zombies that finally pushes the undead narrative to its limits.
Campaign: The True Black Ops Fabric + Extra Steps
The themes of any given Call of Duty campaign are always defined by the studios that create them. Infinity Ward’s, for example, is more of a military storyline with wars and global conflicts on a grand scale. With Black Ops, however, the story is focused on secret operations, mind-bending scenarios, interrogations, and sometimes, the narrative takes place outside reality itself. In that sense, Black Ops 6 is one of the most “Black Ops” games I’ve ever played, delivering even more than what you’d expect from it.
There’s no doubt that Black Ops 6 has the most mission variation in the franchise. This is a huge claim, and it gets proven to you from the very first hour of playing. You start by intercepting a convoy in Kuwait and then follow up by hunting down the Senator with a sneaky CIA-type objective. Next thing you know you’re in Iraq playing an open-world game, planning a casino heist after, or even better, fighting zombies with a grappling hook in the Campaign. All of which have their own unique gameplay elements that’d make the difference.
There’s a new items wheel added to the game, where you navigate through your gadgets and choose them based on your needs. Want to go slow motion with an Adrenaline Shot? Or do you want to blow up an enemy Juggernaut via an RC-XD? These options are expandable as you search the area for new items on every single mission.
The enemy AI in this game really gives you a hard time even if you’re a veteran shooter player, making it feel like a lifetime achievement if you finish Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign on one of the two hard difficulties. One of the hardest, probably, is the Emergence mission, where you’re literally playing Bioshock in the Call of Duty engine. Zombies are the enemies, and the grappling hook is your savior here, with new animations uniquely added to the Campaign for finishing off the undead. The zombie boss fights and the way you need to avoid the mannequins chasing you is something you’d never forget in this mission.
Just when you think Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has had enough by adding zombies and the horror to the Campaign, Treyarch levels up the genre by giving you a Resident Evil type of mission where you’re in a super quiet dark room surrounded by mannequins that move once you pick your eyes off of them. Hearing screams in the background with zombies/ghosts attacking is just pure horror you don’t expect but later enjoy to remember.
It’s not just the mission verities that make the Black Ops 6 Campaign one of the finest ever, too. The way it’s so masterfully done by Treyarch is its crowning achievement. Every piece of the Campaign gameplay is planned in detail. Let’s just say that missions like Emergence and Separation Anxiety are the very reasons I fear the mannequins now.
As a longtime CoD player, I really felt the fan service throughout the Black Ops 6 Campaign. It’s like the dev team has thought so much on this that I can always find something new when I roam around the map. Even the safe house that works as a hub in this game has puzzles to keep you busy for hours.
Gameplay aside, the story of Black Ops 6 Campaign is once again, the exact thing you’d expect from a Call of Duty: Black Ops game with extra layers. The spy tales of Black Ops with a character that’s brainwashed or worked on as a test subject are back strong with BO6. It’s actually so much, that hours into the game, I forgot about the answers I was seeking for Alex Mason’s death and Raul Menendez.
You play as “Case,” an unknown character who operates under the command of Troy Marshall, a CIA agent who’s been trained by none other than Frank Woods. The whole plot is about how a group of CIA agents find out about moles within the agency and try to find and stop their plans. There are twists within this narrative, with the side story of Case being the cherry on top and the big mystery in the end.
The overall characterization of the new faces like Jane Harrow, Felix Neuman, and most importantly, Troy Marshall is over the top. Each of the characters has their own backstories, building up their motives as you get to know them more throughout the Campaign. Again, the mission ‘Separation Anxiety’ hammers this point by giving us a deep dive into Jane Harrow’s life.
Multiplayer: Redacted Glory Meets Innovation
Omnimovement is obviously the big elephant in the room with Black Ops 6, and the reason I’ve brought this up here is because it affects the Multiplayer the most. With any pivotal gameplay change to the Call of Duty formula, Multiplayer is where it pops out, and Black Ops 6 has many of them.
Omnimovement has already become a big talking point. It’s an addition that nobody really asked for, but I’ve actually found it incredibly satisfying. You can run, slide, and dive in any direction. Running to the sides or backward is what I’ve used a lot as I wanted to face forward while trying to flank the enemy. Sliding to the sides and back is also a reasonable use of the Omnimovement system that helps you escape enemy fire in tight situations and turn momentum. Shooting with floating accuracy while diving, though? This is one feature you won’t be using much in competitive gameplay.
Overall, then, Omnimovement works more like a very positive quality of life change than creating a big skill gap that we were all worried about. This addition doesn’t kill gameplay, but it’s worth nothing that the aim assist is slightly nerfed in this game. If your shots aren’t landing like how they used to in MW3, the movement system isn’t the culprit. It’s you. Sorry.
The Gunsmith in Black Ops 6 has also changed a lot from how it was with the previous Modern Warfare titles. Now there are fewer attachments for each weapon, but they actually mean something when you use them. There’s one compensator for dealing with the recoil instead of 100 useless versions of them for instance. This system is simple and efficient, and it’s how classic Call of Duty works.
The same goes for the perks. They don’t have any priority to the other anymore. Perks now have 3 slots and 3 categories to choose from, allowing you to get a speciality bonus if you bind all three from the same class. Want another perk? That’s where Wildcards come into play. Returning from BO3 and BO4, Wildcards play a major role in creating a class in Black Ops 6. You can have the Gunfighter for 8 attachments on your primary weapon, pick Overkill to carry 2 primary weapons, or, fancy a Perk Greed and pick your 4th perk from the collection. There are other Wildcards to pick as well in Black Ops 6, but these three are usually the top picks.
On top of that, the prestige system is back with Black Ops 6, giving players a 1000-level cap to enjoy grinding to reach right from the get-go. With every prestige comes unique emblems and decals to show off your mastery of the game, but, there’s more to claim. You will be rewarded with classic Black Ops operators and unique blueprints that only a prestige master can use. One, Big, W.
Now there’s one important thing I’ve saved for the last in this Black Ops 6 Multiplayer review: Maps. Plugging in some negativity here, the respawn system in most Black Ops 6 maps is broken. Take Babylon for example. In Domination, the A site of this map is where players are spawn trapped. The game consistently spawns you in the same location, allowing the enemy to easily butcher you all and call in as many Scorestreaks as they want.
The Multiplayer maps design in Black Ops 6 is just good, with a few of them like Skyline standing out as outstanding. However, one clever idea on most of these 3 lane maps is a 4th lane working as a secret passage to the other side of the playground. Some maps like Skyline and Subsonic have some extra features as well, like pressing a button to shut the doors or open them, which is quite handy.
Zombies: “Bye Bye Dark Aether”
By the end of Black Ops 4, the Call of Duty Zombies community was waiting for an interesting plot that’d follow up the Aether storyline. And honestly, Samantha and Richtofen‘s return in Cold War hyped me up pretty bad for that one huge Zombies comeback. However, merging the Call of Duty Campaign with Zombies limited innovation, later resulting in big disappointments like Vanguard and MW3. Black Ops 6, however, has the opportunity to turn this around.
Two maps are present at launch with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies, and there’s a colossal amount of content to dive into. First off, both maps feature a main quest that follows the story we left on Cold War, and honestly, the big reveal on Terminus Island’s end credit scene gave me the Zombies goosebumps I never had since Black Ops 4. Not to spoil anything here, but this creates a massive opportunity for later developing the Zombies storyline outside the limitations of the Campaign timeline.
Both maps also feature a ton of side easter eggs, references, and secret items like turning yourself into Aetherella to kill Zombies with laser beams or getting a free Ray Gun on round 5. This is the core element of Zombies we’ve missed so much, and with a solid narrative and dedicated crew, it’s definitely a big step in the right direction.
You start the Terminus Island from its top prison area and work your way all the way down to the secret lab hidden inside the caves. Zombies are brutal here from round 16 onwards, and a new enemy type called the Amalgam joins the undead team to take you down. The easter egg hunt on this map requires more passion and teamwork, which is what Call of Duty Zombies is all about.
Liberty Falls on the other hand is more of a soft approach to the Round-Based Zombies, giving you a wider area to work around. The easter egg hunt is there on this map as well, but the final boss fight and the overall experience are much easier than Terminus. You also get to see a first-person perspective of different versions of zombies killing your character when you die, which is a clever and fun addition to the game.
Now both maps are good on their own standards, but Richtofen almighty there are too many items to unlock in Black Ops 6 Zombies that’d give you weeks and months of playing to get them all. Weapons and attachments aside, Perk Augments are the highlight of the show here, with every perk-a-cola featuring 6 augments to choose from.
These augments are unique to each perk, and they’re separated into major and minor categories, allowing you to pick one from each for every single perk. But before you pick them, you have to unlock them. And with every game you start, you can only research one of the augments. This is probably too much, but knowing that Speed Cola’s major can refill your mag without reloading and Juggernog stuns the enemy after your armor breaks, it’s all worth it!
Conclusion: 2024 Just Had One of The Best Call of Duty Games Ever
After having played for days and tried every single mode, it’s hard to pinpoint much that I disliked. The Campaign unfolds one of the most ambitious Call of Duty storylines with too many gameplay options and a variety of content. The Multiplayer is a Call of Duty classic with a brilliant and simplified loadout menu and amazing maps –the aforementioned respawning issues only impact a select few of them.
In the end, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies features a perfect story connection, a dedicated crew, and the return of the Round-Based, which is the core frame of this game mode. It’s everything we’ve been asking for since 2018. Now it’s on Activision to ensure this high watermark becomes the new standard going forward.
Best CoD In Years
Black Ops 6 excels in delivering an adrenaline rush Campaign with the most variety of mission types we've ever seen in a Call of Duty game, featuring rock solid Multiplayer and Zombies modes, with a massive amount of content to dive into from the get-go.
The Good
- Mind-bending story with great characters
- Lengthy campaign with lots of mission variety
- Neat Loadout System
- Classic round-based Zombies return
The Bad
- Poor respawn system in Multiplayer
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Awesome
