Both games in the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 2 and 3, had underwhelming single-player offerings. With Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 however, the 2024 entry in the annual series has plenty of single-player missions genuinely worth writing home about.
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Black Ops 6 focuses less on bombastic setpieces and more on missions with unique mechanics thoroughly explored in the given level. The game switches it up in the next mission before the mechanic becomes tiring. The best missions depend on personal taste, but it’s a little easier to agree on the weakest ones. They do not present anything interesting or fresh to the game or the series as a whole.
For more thoughts about the game itself, including the multiplayer and Zombies mode, read our review here.
11
Bishop Takes Rook
Mission 1/11
This introductory mission has nothing special going for it and even presents inaccurate expectations for the rest of the campaign. You follow two NPCs while they guide the protagonist through the desert environment to capture a target.
It is a typical Call of Duty fair one could easily sleepwalk through. It is short, though, so just hang in there for a bit before more interesting objectives come in future missions. It is also good that the game does not give us the best thing first.
10
Separation Anxiety
Mission 10/11
Like its chronological predecessor, Black Ops: Cold War, one of the final missions is a hallucinogenic trip through a character’s psyche. Unlike Cold War, this time, you dive into the villain’s mind, not unlike Tarsem Singh’s The Cell. You directly control the villain here.
It loses points because of how similar it is to the mission from the 2020 game and since many of the objectives require little effort on your part to figure out despite being presented as riddles. Still, it is interesting to see such a strange turn in a military shooter.
9
Most Wanted
Mission 3/11
The Black Ops games are at their most interesting and unique when they feel like spy capers. Black Ops 6 features several such missions, such as Most Wanted. This level loses points, though, since most of it feels automatic.
The only time it really gives you agency is the method you use to catch a photo op with the senator they need to capture to gain his retinal information. The second half gets more interesting. You infiltrate a CIA facility that’s already been attacked by the enemy organization Pantheon. You can do it either stealthily or by blowing away every enemy in sight.
8
Cradle
Mission 5/11
This is one of the few missions without a stop at the safehouse. It is a raid on one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces you take part in accompanied by British troops. It is one of the more bombastic levels, and your efforts in the prior mission affect what abilities you have at this level, making it either harder or easier depending on your completionist tendencies. It goes from attacking the palace to eventually exfiltrating, which involves standing on the rooftop and shooting down attack helicopters.
7
Checkmate
Mission 11/11
The final mission in the game is a typical race against the clock and antagonist, as their master plan is just seconds from being accomplished. You make a last stand at the Bulgarian safehouse, which serves as the hub between missions, and then chase the antagonist to stop their plans.
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It’s anti-climactic. You figure out the plan, and the actual thwarting of it is done off-screen. Knowing Call of Duty, the intriguing cliffhanger is likely to be continued in seasonal cinematics rather than in a sequel.
6
High Rollers
Mission 7/11
This mission feels more at home in a PS2-era James Bond game than in a Call of Duty title. Case and the team disguise themselves as various roles in a corrupt casino to find information locked away in a vault. You start the mission, sneaking through the canals underneath to disable the security before taking the roles of the other team members.
Of course, things do not end smoothly, and the team is forced to shoot their way out of the place. Fighting in a glitzy casino instead of forests or warzones helps make this mission feel particularly unique.
5
Ground Control
Mission 8/11
This is the most traditional of the missions, compromising the middle portion of the game. You shoot your way through a ruined airport in Kuwait to capture a Russian scientist at the center of the biological weapon driving the game’s plot.
From open areas to the tighter interiors, it is a straight push through Pantheon agents and Saddam Hussein’s army. It still manages to shake things up with an absurd vehicle segment that ends with shooting a rocket at a plane about to leave the runway. Longtime fans will also be happy to see Lawrence Sims make an appearance.
4
Emergence
Mission 6/11
Black Ops 6 finds a way to incorporate the popular Zombies mode into the main campaign. You infiltrate an abandoned CIA site, and protagonist Case is exposed to a biological weapon, causing him to hallucinate while still trying to achieve his objective. The meat of the mission is finding four keys while fighting off imaginary zombies.
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They are real to Case, though, so they can still kill you. The first chunk of it only allows melee weapons, but weapons become available as the later challenges to get the keys almost overwhelm you with zombies. There is also a fun mechanic with the mannequin enemies that only move when you look away, like Boo from the Mario games.
3
Under The Radar
Mission 9/11
Hiding in plain sight is always fun. The first half of Under the Radar puts you in an enemy uniform while devising how to sabatoge several of their installations to make an attack on the soviet prison where Pantheon is holding up possible.
Stealth is mandatory here but the game is forgiving with being spotted. You explore and talk to NPCs to learn more about the different ways to destroy each of the objectives. Once that part is done, it is an assault on the base that leads into the game’s climactic missions.
2
Blood Feud
Mission 2/11
Though you have a team, Blood Feud sees you on your own for the first half. You sneak your way through the small town to reach a tower where a sniper rifle awaits. You take out the target and then meet up with Sev, whose driver is blasting Nine Inch Nails’s Head Like a Hole.
The second half of the mission is an infiltration of the Guild’s chateau. You get caught, and then you and Sev make a break for it, taking out the targets one by one on the city streets. Things went south, but you still get the job done.
This mission in particular, highlights how good Black Ops 6’s stealth feels
1
Hunting Season
Mission 4/11
Hunting Season feels like what the open missions in 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 should have been, only on an even larger scale. Your main objective is taking out three SCUD missiles, but various optional points of interest are scattered on the map. The more you do here, the more attack options you have in the following mission.
Even without this carrot on the stick, the bonus objectives are just fun to do. The ability to take a stealthy or loud approach to each bonus or main objective opens up even more gameplay possibilities here. Even though it is an FPS, Hunting Season evokes memories of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
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