Call of Duty Black Ops 6 review – the best CoD in years

The Black Ops series carries a different vibe than the broader Call of Duty franchise. It’s advertised as a grittier, perhaps more cerebral branch of the FPS phenomenon – though, on a basic level, it still involves riddling your problems with holes until they go away.

Rather than a single experience, Call of Duty games can be considered a package deal, with most entries cramming in three games’ worth of bang for your buck. Whether you have a penchant for round-based Zombies, you’re a prestige-hungry multiplayer fan, or you only dip your toe for the single-player experience, I think there’s much in Black Ops 6 to like, even if I didn’t love it.

Last year’s campaign left me perplexed. Eschewing the set-piece bonanza that most players crave, MW3 was a dull trudge through a borderline intolerable story. The scope was too large, and playing it was a chore, especially those Open Combat missions. It felt tired.

Black Ops 6, in comparison, feels like the minor shot in the arm that Call of Duty players deserve. The campaign, while not showing any real innovation of its own, just about kept me engaged, omnimovement in multiplayer is an exciting improvement, and zombies mode returning to round-based action rather than a reused Warzone map is worth celebrating.

The campaign has a ‘good guys gone rogue’ slant; with the whole world against them, our band of morally ambiguous heroes must use whatever resources they find to save the world, rather than a governmental organization handing them thousands of grenades before a mission.

It doesn’t quite work out this way, though, as the team almost immediately finds themselves in an opulent manor filled with cash and able to book flights to any country, seemingly at will, despite being on what sounds like a rather intense most-wanted list. Slumming it never really comes into the equation, and what could have been a major point of difference becomes a non-issue.

You can freely explore this manor – The Rook – which acts as a safe house hub between missions. There are several secret areas to discover by using a blacklight and some ingenuity, but once these are out of the way, the space stays fairly static. You can collect money on your travels and upgrade various benches in the house to unlock perks, which I found superfluous on the normal difficulty option.

Collecting money became a running joke in my head. You visit locations with piles of notes, golden toilets, and priceless antiquities, yet the only currency of worth is small bundles of American Dollars. I like to imagine the player character taking a breather in a firefight to stuff singles into his pockets before steeling himself for the next barrage.

The story seemingly took note of last year’s borefest and instead decided to throw everything at you all at once. It doesn’t necessarily come up with anything original, instead borrowing elements from other, often more interesting games. There’s a Far Cry-style open-world mission (miles better than the Open Combat from last year), an almost Hitmanesque level where you cause incognito havok, and a too-close-for-comfort Control-style mission, set in a retro office space.

All of these ideas are implemented well and offer a distinct experience – at least compared to other Call of Duty campaigns. While they didn’t show me anything I hadn’t seen before, I was glad it amounted to more than a straight-up military shooter. My real qualm is that despite a lot of the more high-concept missions taking place outside of reality, they still adhere to the typical Call of Duty rules – find these things, shoot whatever is in your way. It’s a missed creative opportunity.

Some story elements never come to fruition during the campaign, with some huge, dangling threads left in the wind. I understand that cliffhangers and open-ended questions are par for the course here, but I was left unsatisfied rather than excited to see more. I’m sure many will praise the campaign for taking the sort of swing that other recent entries shied away from, and there’s definitely some merit to that. It’s solid for a CoD campaign, but we’re now six games into the Black Ops series and the characters and world still feel shallow.

Holding this annoyance right in my shoulders, I took to multiplayer to get some of the tension out. This did not work. The matches were lightning-fast, and I had to keep my wits about me at all times. I was not relaxed, but I was entertained.

Call of Duty multiplayer is perhaps the gold standard for arcade FPS games, and this year is no different, with the biggest innovation being the new omnimovement system that allows you to sprint and dive in any direction. It may sound like a small change, and I suppose it is in the grand scheme of things, but omnimovement makes every action feel just that little bit smoother. You can become a fluid harbinger of death, and in a game that has struggled to implement true change over the years, this is a good step forward.

The maps on offer will come down to personal taste. Gala is the standout to me – a three-lane arena with plenty of sightlines and opportunities to get behind the enemy. You also have Subsonic, which is the most devastating semi-circle you’ve ever seen, with working hangar doors in the center to set up a surprise for anyone camping on the point.

The BO6 weapons feel punchy, with each round landing with a dull, satisfying thud. The gunplay basics have been pretty much perfected here, which keeps multiplayer interesting, and with a good assortment of maps, I can see this blossoming into a fan favorite. With the inclusion of omnimovement, gunfights feel fast and frenetic – exactly like a great Call of Duty should be.

The last thing I checked out, and admittedly the mode I had the least experience in, was Zombies. This year’s offering is a back-to-basics wave-based survival affair pitting you against endless hordes of the undead. It sounds fairly simple and unambitious, but the two maps on offer – Liberty Falls and Terminus – are highly interactive and packed full of secrets.

Gameplay and progression-wise, it’s much the same as ever. Zombies grow tougher each round, requiring you to unlock more of the map to reach purchasable upgrades and weapons to improve your arsenal in line with the increasingly bigger and badder enemies. There’s a secret vault, some kind of interdimensional rift, and I was eaten alive by a bald guy wearing a string vest. It was fun.

The longevity of Zombies correlates to how deep its secrets go – players will hunt for days looking for the next easter egg, and the maps here are dense and dangerous. While two maps won’t keep you busy for long, Zombies is still a rollicking great time for now, and I’m looking forward to my next rounds, always trying to go one better.

The highlights of this year’s CoD are undoubtedly Zombies and the multiplayer offering, then. Despite its mind-bending rogues-on-the-run narrative, the campaign’s recycled ideas and weak ending let it down. Narrative questions that I’m sure the devs hoped would linger after my playthrough slipped from my memory just as quickly as they were asked. I can’t see myself going back to this one.

Where Black Ops 6 truly shines is in its multiplayer modes. An enjoyable suite of maps, a new movement system, and satisfying gunplay are the ingredients that make this year’s CoD one of the strongest in recent memory. Its inclusion with Game Pass opens the door to those who wouldn’t have taken the risk on a full-price purchase in years gone by, and Black Ops 6 is ultimately equipped to win over veterans and newcomers alike.