This was one of the most exciting new Call of Duty launches in many years, mainly because it’s the first COD release since Xbox purchased Activision, but also because Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was doing some new and innovative things. With the introduction of the omni-movement system, Black Ops 6 feels faster than years of previous COD games. However, it’s more than just the ability to run sideways here; there’s also one of the best campaigns in recent memory.
Following on from the events of Call of Duty: Cold War, we’re playing a new character named ‘Case,’ as we join the star of Cold War, Russell Adler, who is now a rogue agent on the run and still hunting ‘Pantheon,’ a secret organisation that has been teased out for at least a couple games now. His operation is co-oped by new character Troy Marshall, who is this year’s cover star, and he’s also joined by Black Ops main-stay at this stage, Frank Woods. Together with a couple of other characters, you’re on a mission to find out who Pantheon is, what their plan is, and, as you’ll find out, stop them from their plans, which, as it turns out, aren’t very nice.
The pacing of this year’s campaign is excellent, with a home base you can use to upgrade guns and gear between missions and opportunities to talk to characters more if you wish to delve more into the narrative. Each of the game’s missions feels unique, and the same as some recent COD campaigns isn’t here at all. In one of the first levels, you’re told you have agency in the way a mission can be taken on, and you truly do — guns blazing or stealth; there is a choice here, and a few other missions will also give you similar control within the confines of this ridge Hollywood-like narrative. There’s also a level in Iraq where you’re given the opportunity to complete a bunch of optional objectives across an open level or just jump in a jeep and gun it between the three main objectives. Completing all the optional stuff loaded me up with additional weaponry for the last act of this mission, so I was glad to have completed it all, but I appreciate the game giving the choice to players. On the opposite end, there’s also a stellar level set in a casino where you switch between all of the rogue operatives in a heist that starts like an Ocean’s 11 job but turns into a Heat-level shootout to make your way out in the end.
I was consistently surprised by how the level design in Black Ops 6 shaped out across its 11 chapters. And even if I’ve come to expect a level of weirdness to the Black Ops series at this stage, I was still quite impressed with the commitment here to turning an entire chapter, and one of the longer ones in the game, into what is basically a survival horror game.
With all my compliments for this year’s campaign comes one major complaint about how it wraps up with all the air disappearing out of a balloon. And I can’t even get excited about the prospect of Black Ops 7 continuing the story excitingly because COD has been recently committed to continuing the core game narratives in cutscenes and secret missions seen in Call of Duty: Warzone.
Multiplayer is where you can truly appreciate the new movement system, how refreshing it is, and how well it suits the fast-paced nature of COD multiplayer games. You can run in all directions, dive left, right or backward, slide across the floor at slick speeds while shooting, and shoot around you in a full 360 motion while prone. Thinking about when you’ll do any of these things is where you’ll get caught up because it’s when the movement system clicks that you’ll start to get the most out of it. Of course, with a movement system like this in a game that was already fast-paced, it will make it harder for newer, and especially older, games to adapt. Let’s be real: the young kids playing this thing every night will demolish you. But if you’ve played something with a bit of a fast-paced movement system, anything from Titanfall to a DOOM game, you should be able to pick this up in a few matches. And it will make or break you because while I’m sliding past you, shooting you, and you’re still playing this like it’s Modern Warfare 3, you’re simply not going to stand a chance.
With a mix of old and new maps, there’s a good rotation of what’s here to play, and I don’t think there’s a single map I’d say I properly dislike. The mixture also takes us through locations seen in the single-player campaign, like the casino vault. There are also locations like Vokuta here for Black Ops fans to enjoy, such as the prison where Mason and Reznov escaped from.
Round-based Zombies is back for the hardcore Zombies fans who prefer that to the fully open levels with objectives driving the waves. The two maps here at the launch are presumably filled with enough easter eggs to keep fans happy. It’s not something I’ve ever gotten into personally, although I do enjoy playing Zombies when it’s done right, which this is as it returns the core gameplay to something simple while still throwing increasingly more difficult zombies at you as your rounder number gets higher. As with all COD games with a zombie mode, the only downside to this mode is that your lack of friends will see you paired with randoms, who will be mostly more complicated to communicate with, making the later rounds in Zombies more difficult.
Although not the first year this has happened, I do hate how all games post Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II are now just treated as DLC on the PlayStation trophy lists, and everything boots into this weird Call of Duty client thing every time I want to play the game. Although the current console generations load fast, there’s still something very annoying about launching the game, such as clicking to launch the game or clicking to launch the game.
(Review code provided to Explosion Network.
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