It’s been a long time since a “Call of Duty” game truly entertained me. Sure, I still play them every year, going on two decades now, but it’s felt like the developers were treading water, at best, during the last few installments. 2023’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III” was particularly egregious with its greatest hits of maps meant to disguise how much they were asking gamers to buy something they already owned. A group of friends who play on a weekly basis kept me somewhat attached to the franchise, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t have given up on it without that factor. So consider me stunned to report that this year’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” is an unqualified success, a game with some of the best multiplayer maps in the history of the franchise and arguably the game’s best-ever campaign.
“Black Ops 6” unfolds in 1991, picking up after the events of “Black Ops Cold War,” which was released in 2020, and also developed by Treyarch and Raven Software. The globetrotting campaign opens near the start of Operation Desert Storm, bringing CIA agents Troy Marshall and Case Calderon to the Middle East to extract the Iraqi Minister of Defense. From here, a vast conspiracy unfolds involving a paramilitary force known as Pantheon and a chemical weapon called “The Cradle.” The storytelling is typically explosive, rooted in a kind of cinematic storytelling that feels like what Michael Bay might do with a $2 billion budget.
The Bayhem is to be expected, but what’s surprising about the campaign of “Black Ops 6” is how much it diverts from the norm. For one, there’s a mid-campaign level inspired by the popular “Zombies” mode of the multiplayer part of the game in which Case stumbles into a facility and is infected with the Cradle gas, turning “COD” into an undead shooter like never before. It’s a game that alternates explosive action sequences with truly trippy, surreal storytelling choices, especially in an extensive final mission that reminded me of “Alan Wake 2,” believe it or not. In the end, it’s one of the more engaging and consistently enjoyable shooter games of the year.
And most people won’t even play that half of the game – as of this writing, the final campaign trophy has been awarded to 2.5% of the players. Where are the other 97.5%? They’re killing time in places like Nuketown and Heirloom, two of the multiplayer maps designed to get their addictive hooks into gamers. For me, a successful MP experience is built on two things — map design & consistency. You don’t want the same boring maps over and over again. And you don’t want to wonder how or why you died in a game with inconsistent physics and gameplay.
“Black Ops 6” checks all the boxes, launching with some of the best maps to date. There’s a wide variety in terms of size and strategy from the tight confines of a new all-timer like Babylon to the more expansive canals of a map like Lowtown. And the progression through the ranks is well-paced and logical — no one likes a multiplayer game that doesn’t reward its players with enough new toys to play with and “Black Ops 6” doesn’t falter in that department at all. I raced through the launch levels and am currently working Prestige, and it doesn’t feel like a chore like some recent “CoD” releases (although the Battle Pass is still way too slow.) Note: The main new feature this year is something called omnidirectional movement — an ability to jump in different directions (see image above) that I occasionally do by accident but never strategically enough to make a difference. YMMV.
In the end, “Call of Duty” has become a franchise that’s far too big to fail. That’s one reason a lot of gamers, including this one, had become frustrated with it, concerned that they would just phone it in like some other annual franchises that will make money no matter what they release. It’s somewhat telling that “Black Ops 6” had the longest development process of any “CoD” ever, taking four years to come to the market. Maybe a few of the other annual franchises should take note. Greatness takes time.
The publisher provided a review copy of this title. It is now available.