People love to complain about how long Call of Duty campaigns are even though most people never finish them and just play the multiplayer deathmatch meat grinder instead. Even so, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 promises a set of story-based missions that should run longer than both Cold War and Modern Warfare III, both of which contained some of the shortest campaigns in the entire franchise.
Earlier this year, Treyarch developer Yale Miller told Game File the Black Ops 6 campaign would be as long as a “classic” Call of Duty, suggesting it would net out around six to eight hours. Co-developer Raven Software recently doubled down on that assessment, promising fans it would be longer than Cold War’s campaign which only ran five hours.
“So I think that the game length is going to be variable from player to player, but even if you do try to do the speed run version of it, it is going to be longer than Cold War,” associate creative director Jon Zuk told IGN this week. Differences in what players clock are likely to come down to how much time they spend palling around in the game’s safehouse hub in-between missions.
Call of Duty campaigns have historically averaged six to seven hours in length, but the Black Ops spin-offs at their peak were averaging much more. Black Ops 3 was roughly nine hours to beat, while Black Ops 4 ditched a conventional campaign altogether, much to some players chagrin. Activision has continued throwing more and more bodies at Call of Duty to keep pumping them out every year, but it’s become clear with each new console generation that producing full-fledged, high-quality story content for each new annual sequel is becoming a challenge.
Another way Black Ops 6 is breaking with the recent past is by ditching early access for its campaign. Instead, the story missions will go live for everyone at the same time when it comes out at 12:01 a.m. ET on October 25. The game will also be on Game Pass Ultimate, though Microsoft recently turned off the $1 trial for new subscribers.