Gaming fans patiently count down the days between the release of a new Call of Duty game, and with Black Ops 6, the hype couldn’t have been bigger. The game is set in the early 1990s, right after the Berlin Wall had been taken down. Treyarch, thus, raised the bar for nostalgia, and it was the first time that Game Pass got a new release the same day. The problem is that the question is the all the people who want to know: whether Black Ops 6 brings the shake-up fans were hoping for, or it is just another same-old rehash?
Fortunately, the game does its major and most ambitious moves in the multiplayer mode. Searching for a comeback with its traditional style characterized by highly tactical operations, Treyarch introduces a radical change of concept: the so-called “omnimovement”. One can move at full speed in any direction, change the angle of one’s body in mid-air, and even perform tricks that are usually seen only in action movies. To describe it as fast, one would definitely not be wrong; it is also smooth and, to the extent that it is quite surprising, finding a very few terms to describe it is, in fact, an easy task. In other words, once you have played a segment or two with it, you can ot help but feel that traditional shooters work in a very awkward way. On the other hand, the acrobatic moves also have their limitations. A player jumps through the window of a house, spins in mid-air, and quickly fires the clip of his weapon towards one of the walls. The action is fast and very exciting, but it tends to move the whole fight from one random spot to another instead of the tactical ones.
The issue with the map design is that it is somewhat of a mixed bag. The old three-lane format is back for most 6v6 maps and is thus providing the games with a kind of steady flow while at the same time making it difficult for players who like to camp to get their kills. Lowtown is definitely one of them with its shining beachside village feel and the layers of its vertical that, besides providing depth to the visual, also help the players to find their way. But not every single map is a hit. For example, Babylon is being negatively affected by too many sightlines and spawn points that are so crowded that one cannot help but recall those issues with which the players have been complaining in Modern Warfare (2019). The problem arises when the influencers of an issue, such as spawn logic or netcode, are off, in this case. Knowing that your death was because of poor spawn logic can really get your blood boiling, but at the same time, it can also be very intriguing if that is not the case.
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.