Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Review - Spooks, Spies and Spectacular Gameplay
Ahh Call of Duty, the endless release cycle continues. Each year a new entry and each year it seems that people are finding it harder and harder to care. Yet somehow it goes on to sell a squillion copies and thus the cycle continues. The reason, I suggest, is people are comfortable with what they know. Happy to play a game they feel at home with and despite the last couple of entries being a bit of a miss on the story side, safe to assume they are going to have a generally good time, even if they have seen it all before. So when I jumped into Black Ops 6, I felt like I was in for a fun, yet largely forgettable experience. I had always dug the wild conspiracy stories that the Black Ops games came up with so I expected to blast through the campaign, put it aside and never think of it again. Turns out I was wrong because Black Ops 6 is better than that, much better.
With the Black Ops duties once again being split between two dev teams, Raven on the campaign and Treyarch on the rest, Black Ops surprisingly feels like a very cohesive whole. Each of the three main modes, Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies fit well together and carry innovations across the board. The most notable of these is the new movement system. Players are now much more agile, with side and back dashes, diving slides and easier mantling all making movement much more fluid. It hasn’t taken long for players to embrace it either, with some amazing clips of pro-level players doing some awe-inspiring things currently doing the rounds on social media. It honestly felt refreshing to play and while it might not be the most realistic of additions, it is certainly a welcome one.
The campaign side of things is where Black Ops really shone for me. This is a campaign that has left the classic COD blueprint behind and really opened the door to what this sort of single-player campaign can be. There are open map levels with multiple objectives, a creepy psychedelic level that feels like it was ripped straight out of Bioshock, an Oceans 11 level where players take control of multiple protagonists to organise a casino heist and even something that COD has never ever done well, fantastic stealth levels. Every mission, every goal was fresh, exciting and varied and I genuinely couldn’t wait to see what was next on offer each time a new level started. There is even a home base that hides a range of secrets and puzzles that can be explored in-between missions, along with various facilities that allow players to upgrade their abilities.
Story-wise, things are just as bonkers as you would expect from a Black Ops game. It seems a secret organisation called Pantheon is going about developing a bioweapon that basically turns folks into zombies. Your team of CIA spooks has gone rogue to find out who is in charge and stop them. A fairly simple setup, but before long things take a wild turn and they never look back. The voice cast is all pitch perfect, with Woods and Adler from the previous Black Ops games returning along with a cast of new characters, all brought to life perfectly. The only issue I have with the story is that the ending is a little unsatisfying. I won’t go into details but let’s just say if you were upset at the ending of Halo 2 all those years ago, you will probably be annoyed here.
In the Zombies mode, you probably know what to expect but that is not a bad thing. In a lot of ways, Zombies here plays like a “best of” COD Zombies and is an absolute blast. I played quite a bit with my son thanks to crossplay, (him on the Xbox and me on my PC) and there were no issues at all. It is a shame that it can only be 1 or 4 players, with no scaling for smaller teams, but that is a pretty small gripe. I loved both maps and I felt like the upgrades, randomisers and enemy types were all balanced, with the perfect level of challenge on offer. Fighting off the Zombie horde shouldn’t be easy and that is certainly the case, with each wave an increasingly tough task. It offers a real sense of achievement and only the most committed Zombie killer will make it all the way through to the end.
On the competitive multiplayer side, Black Ops 6 has this wonderful throwback feel that made this old man quite happy. While it isn’t quite “back-to-basics” it is certainly heading in that direction. There are all the classic modes, along with some fantastic new maps (and a classic that just can’t stay away in Nuketown) and all of the weapons feel nice and balanced, at least to this part-timer. The game feels like it is encouraging team play more than previous titles, with the objective-based modes popping up frequently in playlists. Of course, TDM is where most are playing, but as I get older (and the reflexes get slower) I appreciate playing the objective more than simply getting my K/D ratio up. It is also worth noting that multiplayer XP is earned in both Zombies and the competitive modes, so upgrading weapons and unlocking new ones can be done in either mode, which means that it shouldn’t take too long for anyone to have a nice healthy pile of unlocked weapons, perks and kill streaks ready to go.
On the tech side of things the game runs beautifully, and that COD polish is still alive and well. I know it is nothing more than hard work and a shit load of resources, but it always amazes me that these annual titles can hit with so little needed from a patching perspective, especially when compared with most other AAA tiles these days. The game is a real looker on PC and not too shabby on the Xbox Series X either. Loads of detail in the characters’ faces, the environments look great and despite the hectic action, not a framerate drop to be seen. That comes at a cost however as I can say that the experience wasn’t quite as great on my ROG Ally X. 30FPS was the best I could get there, so it isn’t really an option for anything other than singleplayer.
One thing I am really not a fan of is how fragmented the menus and UI feel these days. The game launches on the PC with a universal COD loader, which players then have to choose which COD they want to load. Then within that COD, Black Ops 6 in this case, they have to pick a mode. That mode then launches in its own instance, with each instance requiring its own regular updates. It is convoluted and frankly a little unrefined. I get why Activision has gone this route, but surely there is a more elegant solution. Even if each mode had its own launch icon feels like it would be a better way to go. As it is, it is just resistance that shouldn’t be there and it adds to the time it takes to get into a match in a not insignificant manner.
Really though the negatives against Black Ops 6 are relatively minor. This is easily the best COD has been this generation and the most fun I have had with the series since the insane Black Ops 3. The campaign mode shows real innovation with a host of different, yet equally entertaining missions, the multiplayer is tailored in a way that somehow makes it welcoming to lapsed players and the Zombies mode is an absolute blast with friends. I had long given up on enjoying COD games this much, but thankfully Black Ops 6 has proven me wrong. If you are like me and tired of the Modern Warfare schtick, don’t let that put you off this one. Trust me, you’ll regret it if you miss it.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
