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At this point, I have totally given up on following the plots of the Call of Duty games. I don’t remember what’s been going on in the Modern Warfare games, and I sure as hell have no idea what’s been going on in the Black Ops series. Sure, I do remember Woods (particularly because of the ‘What do the numbers mean’ meme) and some of the faces in Call of Duty Black Ops 6 do look familiar but I couldn’t tell you where I remember them from.
Perhaps that’s for the best.
The Call of Duty series has never been known for its story anyways. It’s always made its mark through solid, satisfying gunplay and its frenetic pace.
Is Call of Duty Black Ops 6 any different?
What is Call of Duty Black Ops 6?
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is a single and multiplayer FPS developed by (bear with me on this)
Treyarch, Raven Software, Beenox, High Moon Studios, Activision Shanghai, Sledgehammer Games, Infinity Ward, Demonware and published by Activision.
It is available right now on the PC, Playstation and Xbox consoles.
Our review code was provided by the awesome folks at Activision! Thanks a ton for the code!
First thing first! PC players listen up! One thing you really have to take note of is that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 on Steam doesn’t appear in your library after purchase. It’ll be labeled under the generic Call of Duty title on Steam.
Before you download, make sure to check DLC folder because it includes other previously bought titles too! So if you have Modern Warfare II on Steam, you will need to uncheck it before you download Call of Duty Black Ops 6. I honestly thought that the game was 216GB when I tried to install it! It’s not!
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 uses the same Call of Duty launcher as past games, so everything is in one place. It’s honestly a godsend and an annoyance because there are so many loading screens in-between you hitting Play on Steam and you actually playing the game.
Multiplayer, Zombies and Campaign are all separate modes which require the launcher to relaunch their individual modules, which means…yep, more loading. It’s been this way for years now, and I’m surprised that Activision hasn’t done anything to make the process more seamless.
In fact, familiar issues from past Call of Duty games return too! Particularly the stuttering load mission briefing FMVs. That’s been a problem since…well, forever. Basically, the game is loading the next mission in the background while the mission briefing FMV is playing. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t handle the data stream so well, as the FMV will always stutter as data loads in the background.
After so many games, it’s still an issue and it doesn’t look like it’ll ever get fixed at this point, so perhaps we should just learn to live with it.
Choppy FMV aside, things are markedly much, much better once you’re in-game. I’m running with everything maxed out and DLSS on Balanced and getting 4K60 with no issues. Slight drops to mid-50s in MP and Zombies, but nothing noticeable in the heat of the moment.
Black Ops 6’s campaign takes place in the early 90s, so it’s filled with references to that era. Clinton, Operation Dessert Storm and the like. It’s a time when sex scandals can bring down a politician, when there’s no such thing as woke virtue signaling and everybody got along just fine.
The campaign ropes in familiar figures from games including a now paralyzed Woods. If you’ve been keeping up with the plot from the Black Ops series, you’ll be glad to see that most of the surviving gang is back together again. No, Captain Price is not in this one, so you can stop wondering.
I honestly love that the story designers took the time and effort to make each stage feel unique, and not just hang their hopes on action and explosions. One stage might require finesse and guile, as you infiltrate a fundraiser for future president Bill Clinton while another might have you navigating an small open world slice of the Iraqi dessert as you run around doing optional missions for the S.A.S. while completing your own objectives.
My favourite has to be the one where you’re in an airport and rushing through it. The close quarters combat in the airplane reminded me of Call of Duty 4 and how I nearly went insane trying to get the Mile High Club achievement back in the day.
Woooooh! That was a bout of PTSD I wasn’t expecting!
Even the linear stages aren’t as by the rails as you’d think. There are usually multiple avenues to tackle the objectives and it’s always up to you how you go about doing it. Unfortunately the open ended campaign from Infinite Warfare is gone (boooo!), as Black Ops 6 missions do follow a linear path, instead of one that you pick.
Hell, one mission even deftly weaves in the Zombies experience with Case (that’s you by the way) fighting off hordes of the undead as he explores a hidden bioweapons facility. Don’t worry, it’ll all make sense when you’re playing the game.
Unfortunately, the integration of Zombies into the main game leaves a lot to be desired. It’s like trying to fit a square piece into a round hole.
While I appreciate the developers trying to try different things, the Zombies mission honestly sucked. It was boring (you basically need to make your way to different sections of the stage to fight bosses guarding key cards) and it was super frustrating.
Fighting bullet sponge bosses who absorb your hits without flinching while being chased by zombies who continuously hit you and whittle down your health isn’t my idea of fun. The only upside to that mission is you get a cool grappling hook to zip around in…which makes the mission feel like something out of Dying Light to be honest.
Too bad it’s still a monumental crap fest.
Befitting the Black Ops in the title, stealth does play a major part in most missions.
There are only some parts where stealth is mandatory (thank god), with the rest of the parts it being wholly optional. I personally love to sneak around but not being to save manually sucks.
I usually restart if I’m discovered in stealth optional sections but that’s not an option here. Black Ops 6 quick saves automatically and very often. While you might not have much to redo if you die, it also means it might quick save at an inopportune moment.
While the game does have a lot of plus points to it, it also has its share of negatives.
Stealth is disapprovingly basic. There’s no way to knock out lights, or stuff enemies in dumpsters or hiding places. Enemies forget about you as soon as you move out of their line of sight. They can ignore dead bodies if it’s too far away from them (even if they can see it).
It’s disappoint because being stealth is so damn fun in the game. You’re Black Ops wetwork! It’s right there in the name! You get a ton of options for being sneaky; a camera that can mark enemies through walls, a tranquilizer gadget that zonks out enemies it hits and more!
Yet, the basic stealth gameplay means all the cool gadgets get second billing to just running up to somebody and doing a CQC attack with R3.
The biggest F-U to me though (campaign-wise at least) was the ending. You don’t get any sort of closure at all. You don’t know if Case died, you don’t know who the mole in the CIA is, you don’t even know what Pantheon’s objectives are (other than what a certain traitor tells you).
It’s like getting to the best bit of a movie and instead of some exposition, it ends. Not even with a cliffhanger, it just ends. Everything is unresolved in the ending.
Considering that Black Ops 7 will be years away, this is just plain mean. Especially since the series has a knack for just ignoring teasers in past titles.
Other than Campaign, Multiplayer is standard fare, except now you can dive to the front, back and sides. Oh you can also run sideways. Yeah, big whoop right? The playlists right now are missing big team battles that past Call of Duty games dabbled in. Sadly, you have to play Call of Duty Warfare for that.
The current playlist is your regular mix of team deathmatch and its many variations.
Some of the maps are taken from campaign stages and some are based off stages you visited. Run around like headless chickens pew pew at everything that isn’t your team and hope for the best. Stages are medium sized, and on par with the rest of the series. They’re not the best or really that memorable (Terminal is still number one
It’s fun, but there’s nothing really new to it. The new Perk Specialty (where you take 3 perks of the same type) doesn’t really do much to add to the multiplayer. It’s just there…and most players will probably ignore it because it’s super constricting. 3 perks of the same type?
Hell, nobody got time for that!
Killstreaks are gone again, replaced by Scorestreaks now.
I’m actually happy for this change because I suck at MP that I never get anything more than an UAV killstreak (or a chopper if I’m really lucky…and camping). Scorestreaks don’t need me to stay alive for ludicrous lives to activate, it just needs me to have enough score! That’s much better, though I know pros will disagree with me on this.
As for Zombies, you get two brand new maps to survive in now. Both maps are cool but I particularly like Liberty Falls. The setting of a ruined small town that’s overrun with the undead is cool, especially since the map takes place in the day, outdoors and in clear weather. Not many Zombies maps can boast that trifecta!
Progression in Zombies and Multiplayer are shared, so you can use your unlocks in either mode. XP earned is also shared, so you can raise your ranks playing one mode only or both. Yes, Solo Zombies also earns you XP, so you’re not forced to play with others to rank up.
The game is also cross-play compatible. As a PC gamer, I’m matched to console players a lot more than PC ones curiously. Not that it makes any difference, because matches are relatively lag-free. I’ve only had ONE match with lag issues and that resolved itself about a quarter of the way in.
On the ASUS ROG Ally X, performance is decent enough with a few compromises.
You’re going to have to turn the preset to Balanced (which is effectively Medium Settings) with adaptive resolution on but you’ll be able to enjoy a relatively stable 60FPS experience.
I benchmarked the Multiplayer mode with those settings and tested the game online.
The verdict is that the gameplay is spot on, though the ROG Ally X’s analog sticks aren’t as good as the Xbox Series X controller’s. Other than that little complaint, the gameplay was smooth and comparable to what I experienced on my desktop. Lag is largely a non-issue, as I never encountered anything noticeable during my tests.
The Bottom Line.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 doesn’t rock the boat or offer anything really new or revolutionary. It’s no surprise, as the series has been in a holding pattern now for years.
Be that as it may, that holding pattern is still one of immense polish. This is Call of Duty as you know and love it. Bombastic action with insane setpieces in the the campaign, fast and furious Multiplayer and the frenetic run and gun action of Zombies.
It’s all here.
There are issues with the game, though they’re mostly from the game’s campaign. Multiplayer and Zombies are decent enough, though your experience will of course vary depending on your skill. The maps are a bit tepid for the most part, though I’m not sure whether that’s from my general burnout at playing the games or because the maps themselves are lacking.
If you’re looking for a decent FPS with a tried and tested Multiplayer and Zombies experience, then yes, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 will do nice. If you’re hoping for something radical and new from the series? Keep waiting. Maybe next year will bring some major changes…or probably not.
TLDR:
The campaign is a bit lackluster but Multiplayer and Zombies are still fun and polished.
The Good:
- Campaign stages are varied.
- Multiplayer is fast and furious.
- No more Killstreaks in Multiplayer.
- Zombies is fun solo or with a team.
- Lots of unlocks!
The Bad:
- Gameplay is super familiar.
- Nothing major new.
- Zombies style gameplay in Campaign stages are out of place and frustrating.
- Multiplayer modes could use more big team battles.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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