Running and gunning are back on the menu, folks. So get your boots on, the ground awaits your next move as you dive from a ridiculous point of the map. And don’t mind that gap as you’ll be shot in various directions anyway, before returning to combat once again.
From the tone I’ve set, it’s fair to say that I quite enjoy the latest entry in the Call of Duty series, which after all that has happened in the background for it to manifest itself onto the Xbox Game Pass lineup, it has to be a “do or die” situation for the Green Team.
And while there are some missteps in the full package, I’d say Treyarch and Raven Software have another hit in their hands, 4 years after the unnumbered Cold War entry.
So, let us begin.
Presentation
After skipping over the new engine back in 2020, Treyarch finally uses the IW 9.0 engine that most of their counterpart teams within the Call of Duty franchise have been using, and it showcases well with the brighter contrast that helps with the color popping out more at certain points within the campaign itself.
It’s even been tweaked a bit too, after complaints during the beta that the color shading had been too washed out, so what you see in-game now is the dev team using the feedback from the players for the final tweaks, something that’s quite rare to see in the current era of game cycles.
The performance is still the gold standard that you might expect from the COD camp, as they will try the hardest to make sure the last-gen consoles (which might be for the last time, who knows) and even the lower-powered ones like my Series S to keep a Steady 60fps at all times, without compromise within all four modes (hence the need for those many support studios), and I haven’t seen any slowdowns during my time. So a plus for that point.
The UI still feels the wrath of the Warzone integration, with the COD app the only way to launch the Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies. And worst, the fear of getting booted out of the Campaign when there’s a server downtime looming each time, gone are the days where your disk or download contains everything you can play.
Sound design is still what you expect from a game that has a “Treyarch mix” as the default option, where the bombasting nature of the guns, coupled with the “pings and pongs” that make the endorphins glee in delight, I’ll say it’s still the best standard for sounds in the past year for Call of Duty. It just sounds right as you land a clean hit or two.
Gameplay
The big selling point for this new edition of the game is the Omnimovement feature that sees your character being able to shoot in 360 degrees in all directions, fast and accurately in a fight. If this sounds very Max Payne 3, then you would be mostly right as you can press and hold sprint along with jump to initiate a dive and still be able to shoot your target, most of the time.
It’s a fun movement tech that gets the laugh each time people do the dives to shoot only to be met by a stray sniper bullet or as I would usually do it, a barrage of machine gun ammo onto the target. And it evens out the skill level when even the top players can be caught out. It also helps with it being added into both Campaign and Zombies to make sure everyone tries out this silly movement thing, especially in Zombies.
Speaking of which…
Zombos, Campaigns And Such
The new Zombies mode so far feels like a mixture of both the original Round-based mode and the best part of Cold War Zombies (in my opinion) was the Outbreak mode, where you can do parts in any order, which is how both Liberty Falls and Terminus are designed, with the latter being part of the greater storyline for the Zombies mode (yes, those things are there, and it’s bonkers).
The devs brought elements from their previous iterations into this one, so you have the power-ups from 3,4 and Cold War combined with the Gobble-Gum stuff being included to make the rounds quite unique with what equipment you could bring in along with doing the multiple Easter Eggs or even the main missions that really goes very deep into the mechanics.
I do hope though that they will perhaps bring back more modes like Outbreak mode or even Cranked once again, but who knows, what we have right now seems solid enough.
Then we have the campaign, which is again under the guidance of Raven Software, and they have once again bought out the banger of a story campaign that brings players around the world as the Black Ops once more, this time as Case, an interesting silent protagonist that starts out tame when compared to their partners like Woods, Adler, and even the newcomer Marshall.
But after a certain point, our main boy becomes quite an interesting character that makes the entire campaign worth playing towards the end with all the twists and turns running up towards even the end of the campaign well worth the playtime.
The Usual Multiplayer
So, this is the usual TV Dinner of the Call of Duty package that’s filled with the usual chaotic nature of the game, ’s filled with loud calls, moment-to-moment gunplay, and banter that’s more tame when compared to its infamous days not even a decade ago.
The aforementioned Omnimovement staff have refreshed the multiplayer from the typical Dolphin Diving and camping sthick, to now audacious rooftop jumps to make the final kill, or playing dead as you take out the targets. It’s a very welcome rejuvenation in how a typical match plays now, and that’s not to mention the Skill Based Matchmaking being quite solid even before the first Live Season making it fair for most players.
The new map design feels a bit off for my taste it’s not really as big as the originals or even in Cold War, but the 3 lanes merging into 1 action is what you would expect from the Treyarch folks. It just feels not as memorable as the previous games, like Miami, Vorkuta, or even the iconic Nuketown. But we’ll see how they’ll add more in the future.
Content
Unfortunately for Call of Duty games in the modern era, it is one of the many live service games that will keep going until the next installment, next October. So content won’t be an issue on the multiplayer plus zombies side.
There’s also that big mode that people keep playing because it took off in 2020 and they haven’t looked back at anything else besides it called Warzone, if that’s your thing. It’s still something that’s not my cup of tea but hey, it’s one of the only places you can see a firefight between the cast of The Boys alongside Nicki Minaj, going toe-to-toe in a duel to the death.
Like if you subscribe on Xbox Game Pass solely for the COD content, you’ll get your money’s worth within the completion of the campaign, really. Like a month’s worth of stuff can be done within this weird package of a video game.
Personal Enjoyment
I feel like this has been the return to form that’s needed for the COD franchise after three underwhelming games in the past three years. But for me personally, Black Ops 6 doesn’t really set the world on fire as much as I wanted it to. Sure parts of it are incredible (like the one in the secret lab, which I can just say due to spoilers) but they aren’t as solid as the entirety of the third act of its predecessor campaign, where you can backstab your entire team because of their actions, and that’s an optional objective.
That’s not to say that this sixth installment isn’t good at all, this has been the most polished COD that I’ve played since the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, but my soft spot for Black Ops Cold War and how chaotic its development was during a Pandemic made me love it too much. And so 6 feels like a solid enough sequel.
Verdict
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is the complete package that Microsoft and Activision need to mark its arrival onto Game Pass, with an incredible moment-to-moment campaign, intuitive Zombies, and a multiplayer mode that’s loved by many, and loathed by others.
And it’s part of a service that costs as much as a lunch set at a KFC. Just grab it and enjoy the chaos, because this sort of good times doesn’t always last.
Played on Xbox Series S, Game is part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate/PC Subscription.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6
The return to form that’s needed for the COD franchise after three underwhelming games in the past three years,with an incredible moment-to-moment campaign, intuitive Zombies, and a multiplayer mode that's loved by many
- Presentation 9
- Gameplay 8
- Content 8
- Personal Enjoyment 8