Every year, the Call of Duty series is the most anticipated release, and the next day, the excitement for Black Ops 6 was literally beyond the sky. Shortly after announcing the new game to be set in the period right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the 1990s, Treyarch promised a completely new way of experiencing history with this release, and also broke their record of a first-day Game Pass drop. So now, the question that is haunting everyone’s mind after the release is whether it is going to be just another rehash of the same old or a revolutionary work? Or maybe, a disappointment for the fans?
It does its boldest and most daring work, quite fortunately, in multiplayer mode. Treyarch comes back to its usual heavily tactic-focused style, but with a crazily novel twist for the follow-on movements. Gamers have the freedom of movement; they can run in any direction, turn in the air, and execute stunts that they might have seen only in a film. The game is quick, sleek, and almost surprisingly simple to learn, and after a few matches, the old-style ones seem lame. However, the maneuvers can go over the top at times. For example, the shots could be coming from the player who is flying through a window while twirling in the air. One may have a good time, but the combats tend to become rather haphazard than tactical.
The map layout is a little bit of both good and bad. Most of the 6v6 maps have reverted to the old three-lane format; thus, games have a steady tempo, and it is quite difficult for campers. Lowtown is a great example of a beachside village style with its colorful characters and vertical layers that give depth to the scene. However, not all maps are that great. As a matter of fact, Babylon suffers from too many sightlines and overly occupied spawn points, which makes it recall that players were complaining about the same issues in Modern Warfare (2019). If the netcode is bad or the spawn direction is off, then the frustration can build up to a great extent in a very short time.
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.