Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 review – the best COD of the generation

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 – a return to form (Activision)

This year’s Call Of Duty is aiming to restore the series’ reputation, with an ambitious new story campaign and the magic of omnimovement.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 is one of the biggest releases in the franchise’s history. Not necessarily in terms of scale or numbers (although early indications are that it’s done very well) but instead the magnitude of the occasion. This is the first Call Of Duty launch since Microsoft’s mammoth $75.4 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which technically makes this a first party Xbox game.

As such, this is also the first Call Of Duty to launch on Game Pass the same day it comes out (unless you only have the cheaper Standard tier). This means that where players would normally be paying a minimum of £70, you can now play as part of a £14.99 subscription where you don’t just get access to Black Ops 6, but Xbox’s complete library of first party, and other, games.

However, in recent months it’s become clear that that record-breaking acquisition has put extreme pressure on Xbox execs to start clawing back all that money, with one of their big hopes being that it and subsequent Activision Blizzard games will greatly increase the uptake for Game Pass. All of which gives a general sense of added pressure to Black Ops 6’s release.

The once untouchable Call Of Duty name has faltered in recent years, most obviously with last year’s Modern Warfare 3. While still healthy, the series could benefit from a significant win to get back on track. That’s the environment Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 finds itself in. The stakes have rarely been higher, but developers Treyarch and Raven Software have risen to the occasion.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 story campaign review

Although multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone are now much more vital to the overall Call Of Duty experience, the story campaigns are still an important expression of what the series can do. There are players who will enjoy a Call Of Duty campaign but have little interest in the other modes, making it hard for them to justify a full-price purchase. If that is you… well, you’re eating good this year, even if you might want to brush up on previous games first.

One of the tricky aspects of the Black Ops lineage is that, after five games, the sub-franchise’s story has jumped all over the place. To call this timeline convoluted would be an understatement, as the first two Black Ops games alone span from 1961 to 2025. Besides Black Ops 3 and 4, which set themselves in the far future – bypassing the timeframe of original leads Alex Mason and Frank Woods – the games all have to exist within an already established timeline.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 – more inventive than you’d think (Activision)

Black Ops 6 takes place in 1991, placing it in-between the time jump in Black Ops 2 and exploring an unresolved mystery of who betrayed Woods and Mason. So, if you’re hoping to be able to follow what’s going on, even as someone who’s played these games before, you may want to consume a story recap of the Black Ops timeline before jumping in. Once you’re up to date on the background, you’ll find one of the best campaigns in over half a decade.

Black Ops 6 has you (mostly) taking up the role of mysterious protagonist ‘Case’. He finds himself aligned with a band of renegade but charming CIA agents, which includes series favourite Frank Woods. After coming up against an unknown paramilitary force called Pantheon, in Kuwait during the Gulf War, it’s not long before you and your team find yourself outlawed from the CIA but still trying to take down the group with the resources available to you.

The Black Ops 6 campaign has two major aspects going for it. The first is the sheer variety. It’s genuinely a delight to see what you and your crew will get up to next. One mission will have you moving through an enormous space in Iraq, clearing optional objectives in what almost feels like a trial run at an open world Call Of Duty game. Another has you infiltrating a fundraiser for Bill Clinton and sowing discord to get access to a politician.

There is also a bank heist at an impossibly lavish casino and, in an extraordinarily unlikely homage, a mission that is heavily influenced by Remedy’s Control. Some might say it strays too far from the Call Of Duty norm, but at least it’s not another level set on an oil rig. A lot is going on here, but all of it works due to how earnest it is, and the excellent execution. At times it threatens to cause whiplash as you jump between wildly different scenarios, but it also succeeds because of the second key success: the characters.

It’s not that the characters are exceptionally written but between missions Black Ops 6 brings you back to the Rook, an abandoned Soviet mansion that serves as your team’s base of operations. Here, you see the effects of the ongoing story and mission play out on a more personal level. As you walk around, you may bump into a quiet moment between two characters, or you can stop and chat with others, complete with dialogue trees. You’re not making decisions here, but you can delve as deep into the backstories and character interests as you want.

It’s reminiscent of one of the franchise’s best campaigns, Infinite Warfare, which employed a similar tactic of letting you spend time with characters outside of missions but not forcing you to listen to them if you don’t want to. It’s not the most fleshed-out feature, but it really does help you bind the sinews between you and your team. It makes you care just that little bit more and gives things a personal touch that can be missing in campaigns that blow through mission to mission without ever stopping. It’s key to making Black Ops 6’s campaign feel more impactful, and it’s helped by some excellent performances and animation.

If you like your Call of Duty to be a hardboiled military adventure, you may be turned off by some of the more fantastical elements, but if you don’t have those expectations this is arguably the best story campaign in a decade and a genuinely great single-player experience in its own right.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer review

Of course, where most people will be putting the majority of their time is into Black Ops 6’s multiplayer. Like the campaign, each iteration of Call Of Duty also has a slightly new twist when it comes to the competitive side. To more casual players it may not seem to change much, but to seasoned vets the difference between Advanced Warfare, WW2, and Black Ops 4 is night and day.

What helps Black Ops 6 carve out its identity is its reworked movement system. Special care has been put into the much publicised ‘omnidirectional’ gimmick and it’s actually very impressive. This essentially means you can slide and hop in any direction without losing momentum, making this an exceptionally mobile shooter. There’s a genuine fluidity that really works, making for moments of expressive skill as you run, slide, and hop your way around maps.

This is, of course, propped up by the gunplay and presentation the series is famous for. One thing that’s stuck around is the loadout system that has become a staple for most online Call Of Duty modes. While there’s nothing particularly new to it, the carrot on the stick of unlocking a new attachment makes it easy to get stuck in that familiar loop of ‘just one more game’.

However, the map selection is currently not entirely convincing. Thanks to the generally faster play encouraged by the movement changes, these maps can feel small. You feel like you’re forced into engagements far more frequently than in most Call of Duty games and that won’t suit all players.

What’s also a little suspect is that, so far, even on bigger maps, engagements seem to play out at similar ranges. A little more variety in sightlines and just a little more space might have let rounds breathe more. While the maps all look wonderful and varied, their design can feel just a touch one note.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies review

Zombies is the third and final pillar of any new Call Of Duty game (at least until Warzone integration, which is coming later in November). It can be hit and miss from year to year – at times being a real sleeper hit, and others a complete afterthought to the headline modes.

Black Ops 6’s offering is a pretty decent showing and certainly the best it’s been in a while, even if it still feels like a full reboot is needed. There are two maps, complete with some light storytelling to keep things ticking along for you. Liberty Falls has you jumping into a suburban town, while Terminus has you running around a prison with some underground secrets to it.

As ever, this is a round-based endeavour, with ever increasing difficulty. As you make it through waves, you get money and crafting material to get better weapons, get access to power-ups, and unlock augments for your run. Then you just carry on until you either fall over or extract, which you can do once every 10 waves. There’s a good variety of zombies here, from your bog-standard undead to flying, poison-shooting bugs, and skittering spiders that can close the distance fast.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 – the same old story but told better (Activision)

For World At War purists, this might be a little overstuffed with power-up systems and loadouts, but if you’ve enjoyed any of the modern versions of Zombies this feels like the best in a while. It’s at the very least a good reason to get some friends together and take a break from the multiplayer for a while.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 initial verdict

Giving a final verdict on Black Ops 6 won’t really be possible until a year’s time, when support is ended and the next Call Of Duty takes over. But it’s clear this is a superior entry in the franchise and at least as good as 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot. There is no weak link here, with the campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies all being good to great iterations of their respective modes.

Some might complain the campaign is too fantastical, but then others complained Modern Warfare was too serious, so it only seems fair for the franchise to cover both ends of the spectrum. The multiplayer maps could use more variety and space to breathe, while Zombies is a fun distraction but still feels like it’s going through the motions.

However, these are largely matters of taste than flaws in the game and your mileage may well vary. How multiplayer and Zombies evolve, and what Black Ops 6 does to Warzone when it’s integrated next month, remains to be seen. Right now though, It all just feels delightfully playable.

It’s an especially easy recommendation if you have access to Game Pass but assuming you’ll spend time in at least two out of the three modes then it justifies the full price purchase as well. Ignoring all the industry politics surrounding the release this is simply a very good game and one of the best Call Of Duty entries of the modern era.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £69.99
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch and Raven Software
Release Date: 25th October 2024
Age Rating: 18

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 – will it be remembered as a classic? (Activision)

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