Whenever a new Call of Duty is coming to the market, folks are going nuts over it. Specifically, in the case of Black Ops 6, fans’ excitement reached the clouds and even beyond where no one could see. To add more spice to the story, the new game is set in the early 90s, right after the Berlin Wall had fallen; thus, Treyarch assured fans that it was time for a whole new experience to relive the past. And it’s a fact that they were breaking their record of having the first-day release of Game Pass again. The title stands not far behind in having this kind of release, so now it is out there, a big question is everyone asking, basically: whether Black Ops 6 is to be a fan’s letdown of the same-old rehash or an absolute shake-up?
Most of the new features that are most daring and positive of the new game can be found in the multiplayer section, which is good news, by the way. Apart from revisiting the traditional tactic-focused style, Treyarch decided to add a little mad new twist to it in the form of omnimovement. To be clear, players may be running in any direction, twirling mid-air, and pulling off a flashy move that looks purely like something from a brand-new action movie. It operates at a very high speed, quite smoothly, and surprisingly, is quite easy to grasp. After you have played a couple of rounds, going back to a more traditional shooter will appear to you as being clunky because of the new one. Even so, the acrobatics can become a little too much. Visualize the characters jumping through the windows, twirling in mid-air, and firing groups of bullets. It is good fun, but tends to make fights a bit more random than tactical.
The map designs are somewhat of a mixed bag. The reintroduction of the classic three-lane layout of most 6v6 maps could be considered the main feature of the return, giving games a consistent rhythm and, at the same time, preventing campers from infinite spots. Lowtown is a unique one with its sunny beachside village and the vertical layers giving not only depth but colors as well. However, not every map is a hit. Mired deeply in that, for that matter, are Babylon’s excessive sightlines and congested spawn points, which make it look like the same issues as those of Modern Warfare (2019) have been going on all this time. So when the netcode is not working or the spawn logic is messing up, the frustration is just piling up, and it can get very severe.
Customization remains a balancing act. The Gunsmith system allows you to adjust almost everything on your gun, which is wonderful—until you see an overpowered build in every single match. Although the time-to-kill is slightly slower than recent installments, it’s fast enough that twitch reflexes prevail more often than not. Loadouts receive an improvement with a third perk bonus reward, catering to players stacking perks of the same type. Wild Cards also make a comeback, enabling creative setups such as dual primaries or additional attachments. The game ships with loads of skins and unlockables, but the worry is whether balance will be maintained with fresh content releases, something Call of Duty has previously struggled to accomplish.
Then there’s Zombies, which goes back to the classic format broadly. The experimental DMZ-style mode is gone. Instead, users are given two maps right out of the box: Liberty Falls and Terminus. Liberty Falls is big, well-detailed, and takes place in a dark West Virginia town, but its open design makes it play a tad too generously. Terminus, on a spooky island blacksite, does a slightly better job of recapturing that classic Zombies tension in tight spaces and creepy set dressing. Each map has its background and cool cutscenes, but they don’t quite have that legendary status of Treyarch’s classic Zombies maps.
Visually and technically, Black Ops 6 is a stunner. The engine cranks out solid graphics, silky-smooth gameplay, and a copious array of accessibility features. Crossplay is seamless, and overall refinement is first-class. But many of the same old problems persist. Janky netcode, obtuse UI, and cheating still plague the series. The new launcher is a minor step forward, but the series is starting to feel its age internally.
Meanwhile, the fan reaction has been tepid. On Steam, the title reached a high of about 300,000 players but fell to 100,000 shortly thereafter—a sharper drop-off than Modern Warfare 3. Some dedicated fans are questioning whether Activision and Treyarch can mend what’s broken or if the series is simply petering out. Even the possibility has been floated that the series will abandon its annual schedule or move further in the direction of Warzone in the future, particularly if current trends continue.
In every sense, Black Ops 6 is the multiplayer at its finest in years, perhaps even since before Modern Warfare (2019). It gets the fundamentals correct, takes gameplay in exciting new directions, and is stunning. But it pulls along some of the same baggage that’s weighed down the series for some time now. And with existing players already falling off, the question is whether this is the next big step for Call of Duty—or the end times for its previous formula.