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Nobody likes a quitter, and last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is proof of what can happen when you get your head down and work to right one’s wrongs. Heavily criticised as a glorified DLC, a year of unmatched support has seen the game rise from the ashes as one of the most robust, content-rich multiplayer offerings the series has ever seen.

It’s seriously impressive what Sledgehammer Games managed in just 12 months, implementing a long list of maps, modes, and fun twists on the core FPS gameplay loop. However, such is the Call of Duty franchise that all its work must be left to the past as a new version takes its place, this year from Treyarch in Black Ops 6. Going back to square one could have been the theme of this particular transition, as the developer looks to follow up on a strong year for the series. Though, with an excellent single player campaign, strong multiplayer content, and the ever-impressive Zombies mode, it has unquestionably avoided such a situation. This is the best Call of Duty has been at launch in years.

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The developer has returned to its alternate history timeline with an instalment that carries on from the events of Black Ops Cold War, in the midst of the Gulf War in 1991. Its unique themes and setting help give the campaign a distinctive vibe and tone, as it plays around with macho military action and James Bond-like spy thriller scenarios. A roughly eight-hour playthrough quickly switches between the two styles of gameplay, as one level to the next can see you go from infiltrating a casino to blow open its secret vault to another assaulting an airport inside a tank. There’s little room for rest — besides the safehouse you return to between missions — as the campaign delivers itself at the usual breakneck pace of a Call of Duty title. It’s tremendously enjoyable and satisfying to work your way through.

Where it really starts to stand out, though, truly distinguishing itself from past efforts, is in a set of levels towards the end. Far and away the highlight of the show, Treyarch introduces some psychological and supernatural elements inspired by the likes of Doctor Who and PREY that lead to some impressively inventive mission design. On top of the already entertaining push and pull between traditional run and gun levels and stealth missions, the game’s commitment to subverting your expectations pays off.

It has its superfluous elements, like useless single player perks pulled from the most inconsequential RPG skill trees. You can buy upgrades with cash collected during missions, but their effects are so redundant that the entire feature is a waste. The safehouse itself also has little to offer outside of a series of puzzles, though it does gain some importance towards the campaign’s conclusion.

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What sticks out the most is its sheer variety. From an open world level with optional points of interest to complete, to a psychological dive into one’s traumatic memories, to a horror sequence stripped of most of your weaponry, Black Ops 6 keeps you guessing at all times. With so much inventiveness and quality FPS action, the campaign will go down as one of the series’ best ever.

Of course, that’s just the start of the journey, as Treyarch has paired its fantastic campaign with a really strong suite of multiplayer maps, modes, and extra features — even at release. The way its online matches play hasn’t changed whatsoever; it’s the sheer breadth of content that has.

On day one alone, the game features 16 maps across 10+ modes (most with extra hardcore variants) and multiple progression systems to master. You can follow the traditional levelling up path that marks the return of the classic Prestige system, giving you the chance to reach the maximum rank 10 times over and then level up a further 1,000 times as a Prestige Master. You can also level up every gun in the game for new weapon skins (which will soon carry over into Warzone) and complete a heap of challenges to unlock new emblems and calling cards to customise your profile with.

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This will all sound familiar to Call of Duty veterans because it is: Black Ops 6 replicates the same style of multiplayer action the FPS franchise has been delivering for generations now. You’ll fire up playlists of Team Deathmatch, Hardpoint, Search & Destroy and the like, and generally utilise the same tactics that have worked for the past 15 or so years. Equally, the spawns are their usual mess at release and skill-based matchmaking can make some matchups utterly miserable. It’s the usual fast-paced CoD mayhem that has either seen you board its train for life or turned you off completely.

What’s so impressive about Black Ops 6 is that it offers so much to do and accomplish that it quite literally could be the only game you play for the next 12 months if you wanted it to be, and that’s just at release. With the classic Nuketown map right around the corner and Season 1 landing next month, Treyarch is primed to capitalise on its strong launch with more and more content.

The only thing that could properly stop a seasoned CoD player from making that commitment is the launch line-up of maps, which leave a lot to be desired. There are no real standouts this year, with a lot of mundane, forgettable locations playing host to the online clashes. You might find a handful you can put up with, but the voting system in pre-match lobbies is more about choosing the map you want to avoid (like Babylon) rather than what people actually want to play. After delivering so many memorable maps in the past, it’s disappointing to come away without any new Treyarch favourites.

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Perhaps the developer was more focused on perfecting its new omnimovement system, which transforms how you move and interact with the experience. The update applies across the entire game, but you’ll feel it most in multiplayer as the skill ceiling has been raised thanks to its potential. While previous entries have experimented with additional movement options (dolphin dive, mantling), the way you simply run about the map has always generally stayed the same.

Omnimovement addresses this by giving you complete control of your sprints, elevation, and dives. Now you can both sprint and dive backwards and side-to-side, and twist your body when laid on the ground to aim at a certain angle. The feature is at its most obvious when you or the enemy are in one of these positions, but it’s actually in the more intricate settings where the best benefits are felt.

When you’re taking cover, for example, previous Call of Duty games have made you physically move your character around a wall to land some shots. This was sorted to a degree with mantling in 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, but in Black Ops 6, whenever you want to aim around a corner, the game will seamlessly point your gun around the angle in a much more natural fashion. It feels like you’re genuinely peeking your weapon and head around the corner to shoot at a target instead of shifting your whole body. With this effect implemented across the entire body, movement feels so much more realistic, as opposed to a soldier unable to perform anything beyond the actions of a robot at 90-degree angles.

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The Black Ops 6 package is rounded out by Zombies, which returns to a wave-based structure after Modern Warfare 3 tried it in an open world setting. There are two maps available at launch: Liberty Falls and Terminus. The former sees a squad of up to four players fight through a West Virginia town that’s fallen to the undead while the latter puts you in an island prison.

We’re probably the furthest you can get from a Zombies expert, but with each map accompanied by its own storyline and set of objectives to work towards, Treyarch appears to have delivered ample content for the co-op crowd. We just wish it wasn’t so complicated.

For generations now, Call of Duty developers have been so consistent in their handling of sublime visuals and smooth performance that the series’ technical points have become to feel like mere footnotes. The game looks incredible no matter what mode you play, and it always runs at a reliable 60 frames-per-second with little to no hints of drops. It’s business as usual for the IP.

Conclusion

Following the launch woes of Modern Warfare 3, the FPS heavyweight series marks a very strong and impressive return to form in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Its single player campaign is one of the franchise’s best-ever efforts, the multiplayer is jam-packed with engaging content, and the Zombies mode seems just as good as it always is when Treyarch is leading things. It never really went away, but Black Ops 6 feels like Call of Duty back at its modern peak.

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