Key Takeaways
- Blackcell Battle Pass offers XP boosts for $30, giving paying players a significant XP advantage.
- Players criticize Activision for “disgusting and disrespectful” tactics with premium upgrades.
- Users express frustration over pay-to-win model, eroding goodwill towards Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
It was all going so well for Activision and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. The game had the strongest launch in series history, significantly outperforming Modern Warfare 3, and the synergy between the game and Xbox Game Pass was off the charts. Sentiment around the game, both from critics and players, was generally excellent, too.
But, over the last few weeks, with Activision being Activision, things have started to sour, and community complaints have started to creep in.
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Black Ops 6’s BlackCell Variant Of The Replacer Skin Costs $50 In COD points
Oh, and you have to buy one pack before the other apparently.
The removal of Stakeout 24/7 kicked things off, but the Smoke Grenade meta, accidental loadout deletions, a suspicious double XP weekend, and extortionate unlock requirements for a new weapon meant the malaise was well and truly back.
The latest issue, however, is arguably the most egregious of them all, with players who fork out for the Blackcell bundles receiving some serious benefits that others don’t.
The Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Blackcell Loyalty Bonus Is “Disgusting And Disrespectful”
The Blackcell Premium Battle Pass Upgrade is supplementary to the standard Battle Pass. It costs $30 and offers players a bunch of new items, including Weapon Blueprints, Finishing Moves, and 1,100 COD Points.
On its own, these rewards are fine. It’s up to players whether they want to fork out an extra $30 for cosmetics. However, as shared by Knexium on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 subreddit, players who purchase the Blackcell Battle Pass Upgrade will also get a range of permanent XP boosts, offering those players a significant advantage.
Knexium posted a table of the XP boosts these players will receive. It showed that those who purchase the Blackcell upgrade every season will receive a permanent 50 percent XP boost, something which the OP called “genuinely disgusting and disrespectful.”
Their sentiments were echoed throughout the thread, which at time of writing has received almost 4,000 upvotes and more than 1,000 comments. Wolfy26wrld999 said, “Who came up with this c**p and who in the right mind would approve that..Wait nevermind it’s Activision.”
Who came up with this c**p and who in the right mind would approve that.
Major_Enthusiasm1099 feared that this is just the beginning for Call of Duty, saying, “It’s only gonna get worse. Eventually there will be something beyond Blackcell that’s like $50-100,” and that’s not too hard to believe.
The anger around the Blackcell XP boosts also bled into the fact that the Upgrade has to be purchased with real money, rather than COD points. One user said, “I bought the Battle Pass once in Modern Warfare 2019, completed it every season since, and have never had to pay for the Battle Pass since then from the COD points I’ve earned. Wish there was a similar system for Blackcell.”
It seems like Activision is doing everything it can to erode the goodwill it earned when the game launched just over a month ago.
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.