Key Takeaways
- Black Ops 6 brings back camo grinding in Zombies, and it’s a great way to experiment with weapons you’d otherwise avoid.
- But people are turning it into a 9-to-5 job, finding exploits and cheats to get the camos as quickly as possible, and ruining the mode for themselves.
One of the best things to happen to Call of Duty Zombies isn’t exfils or scorestreaks or even Gobblegums. It’s camo grinding.
I loved the classic approach of looking for a blue beam in the sky and rushing to the mystery box first thing, rolling it a few times in hopes of getting one of five guns that ran the meta. We’d do so well that our Xbox 360s would get the red ring of death from being left on too long. But it was rare I’d ever use a sniper or an RPG, let alone Pack-a-Punch them.
As of Cold War, you can build loadouts in Zombies, meaning that you can pick any weapon to start with instead of the usual pistol/knife combo, albeit at the worst rarity and thus the worst damage. Each weapon has a series of challenges to complete that unlock camos, and in Black Ops 6, if you unlock all of the special camos (ie Gold, Opal, and Afterlife), you’ll qualify for the ultimate Nebula prize.
The Camo Grind Is All About Experimenting
14 years ago, you’d probably see me holding down the fort in Kino der Toten with the RPK and Thunder Gun, training on the stage as I shred through the undead with the same guns match after match. But with the camo grind, I’ve been going down the list of every single weapon, trying out an assortment I’d never think to use. Hell, I even got to round 30 with a baseball bat.
It’s a fun incentive to try new things in Zombies, and approach the mode in fresh ways. Rocket launchers usually mean getting PHD Flopper as soon as possible to mitigate the splash damage, completely changing the trajectory of the first few rounds.
Using a knife typically means upgrading your armour and spending all of your scrap on upgrading its rarity so it continues to one-shot enemies before being Pack-a-Punched. A far cry from simply rolling the box for an LMG and a wonder weapon and then calling it a day.
But instead of being a fun way to spruce up Zombies, it has become the sole focus of the mode for so many players, who spend every update hunting down exploits to waste their entire day popping headshots. It got so bad that Treyarch even limited how long you can stay in the new Directed mode, forcing you to exfil after five hours.
Players Are Using Exploits To Get Camos
Players found an immortality glitch by using the zipline in Terminus; they encouraged others to hold up in a specific room where infinite zombies would spawn during the easter egg in Directed mode; and they immediately blocked off zombie routes with boats so that they would crowd against them for easy pickings. Without the risk of going down, the camo grind becomes even grindier — you’re just standing in place, holding a button for hours without having to think or engage with the game whatsoever. That’s incredibly dull.
Yet these same people complain about Black Ops 6’s camo grind, and I’m not surprised. It’s a shiny cosmetic that you get from completing challenges, of course it’s not fun if you stop doing the challenge part. Mastering the sniper track by actually using snipers in Zombies, which is incredibly difficult in a fast-paced mode where you are fending off hordes of undead, is far more rewarding than hunkering down in an unreachable spot.
Another big complaint is the challenge to kill Manglers, but after round 30, a comical amount spawn that it’s easy enough to complete in one game.
The camo grind should be the cherry on top of the mode, pushing you to experiment and see Zombies in a new light, not a 9-to-5 job with a quota on a tight deadline. Who cares if you don’t get Nebula straight away? Just enjoy the mode for what it is.
Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.
The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.
In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.
Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.