Call of Duty has grown to such a large scale that even the Black Ops sub-series, with installments released every few years, has survived to the sixth sequel (or seventh, if you count World at War). The previous installment, Black Ops Cold War (2020), was a direct sequel to the original Black Ops (2010). It returned to the 1980s, the Cold War, before the events of Black Ops II (2012) How the new game fits into all this web, we’ll share in our review of campaign of Call of Duty Black Ops. 6.
Chronologically, Black Ops 6 is a direct sequel to Black Ops II, so don’t be surprised that some key characters in the series are already «dead», and Woods is moving around in a wheelchair. For players unfamiliar with the previous games, the references to old characters make it clear that the current protagonists have a long history together and have suffered many losses in their lives.
To understand what is happening in the new game, it is not necessary to play the previous parts.
And in this case, it is probably more of a disadvantage than an advantage. In Cold War, we were presented with a new threat to the world order with a cliffhanger to follow. Black Ops 6 does not continue this storyline at all, completely forgetting about Perseus, the antagonist from Cold War. Although the events of 1989 from Black Ops II are mentioned several times.
The biggest problem with Black Ops is that it doesn’t hold together well as a coherent storyline and is more like a procedural, where each game is a separate story with familiar characters.
As a standalone game, Black Ops 6 is the best thing that has happened to the Call of Duty storyline in many years
The new game makes a small time jump to 1991. The USSR is in the active process of collapse, the Cold War is over, and the soldiers of this war are no longer needed by their country. However, a new threat looms on the horizon — the Pantheon organization and biological weapons.
As in the previous games in the series, the authors take real historical events and personalities and write their own story alongside them. And this time it was really close. To further outline the time frame, we are also reminded of the Gulf War and the personality of Saddam Hussein. Bill Clinton, who was just preparing for the presidential election, is also mentioned. But the main events of the game unfold separately from the real situation in the world at the time.
Screenwriters like to throw around different organizations and names, which only puts an unnecessary burden on an already eventful game.
The constant juggling of secret organizations and dangerous people should have created tension and made the player interested in figuring out this web. But this is not a Sherlock Holmes game, so by the middle of the game it becomes difficult to distinguish who hired whom and why.
And somewhere along the line, the writers must have realized that they had spun too many threads in this tangle, and so they focused on one plot thread about the virus. Cliffhanger was also left at the end, but I truly hope that he will be somehow redeemed in the next part, and not forgotten as it happened with the Cold War. Perhaps in the conventional Black Ops 7 they will even combine the antagonists of the last parts of the series. Now, this step looks not very interesting and even lazy, but logical.
In general, the story is quite classic for a techno-thriller, with secret organizations wielding super-powerful weapons, spies, and traitors. The most important thing is that it works and is devoid of any overtly problematic parts.
The heroes go underground, working with what they have, without any support from their former employer, the CIA, who have enough problems of their own. The new command center is a country house on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast — a former secret KGB base with its own secrets.
My new home immediately evoked an association with Mrs. Croft’s estate. That was the first impression, but then it turned out that there was only one mystery in it, but a big one.
The startup capital allowed us to convert several rooms into a training center and an armory where we buy character improvements and equipment. These are essentially permanent perks that allow you to carry more grenades, improve your health, and so on.
To buy improvements, you need to collect money on missions. In general, the mechanics are good, encouraging you to explore the location, but sometimes leading to funny episodes. For example, during a mission in a bank, out of millions of US dollars, you can only raise the conditional $80 that the game designer left for us. It’s a trifle for the sake of nitpicking, but the situation in this episode is tense, so you could have left nothing at all with the «not at the time» argument.
In the gab, we have the opportunity to talk to the team, to learn a little more about the people we trust with our lives and what they think about the situation in general. The camera is still fixed as it was in the Cold War. The characters look away, gesture, move around in the frame, pause to take a drag on a cigarette, and the first-person perspective creates the illusion of a real live dialog. If you compare it to, for example, Starfield, it’s heaven and earth. Although the scale here is much smaller.
Often the game plays out a mise-en-scene during which control is not taken away from us. At such moments, the game resembles Half-Life 2 or any other immersive sim. It’s just a small, separate element that creates the overall picture of a well-developed game.
In terms of mood and dynamics, the new Call of Duty is reminiscent of Mission Impossible and Craig’s James Bond.
From home, we go on missions to different parts of the world, and this is where the game surprises us the most. In Modern Warfare III, the developers wanted (or were forced) to make large locations with several points of interest. This time, they changed the approach from outright sandboxes to directed open levels with several ways to get in.
After the first, very cheerful, but corridor mission, we are made to understand that the game can be played quietly in stealth, or, like in the good old days, shooting everything that moves, headlong approaching the desired point. And throughout the game, this concept evolves and acquires new capabilities.
First, we are given a choice of three ways to get into the house. Quietly through the ventilation, loudly through the back door in the kitchen, or as loudly as possible through the front door. Later, we are given a location where we need to sabotage three objects. And each of the targets can be disabled in three different ways. If one method fails, the other two remain available, the main thing is to find the right tools.
In another mission during a fundraiser for Bill Clinton, which was partially shown in a separate trailer, you are given the opportunity to reach the goal in three different narrative ways, all of which have their own little story.
There are more peaceful episodes where we need to spy on someone, blackmail or just talk. They provide a great opportunity to take a break from the dynamic action and have a positive impact on the atmosphere of the spy thriller.
Sooner or later, on our initiative or at the behest of the director, a sneak attack turns into a dynamic shootout or a chase after an informant. But, the ability to decide on the style of play in almost every mission is very commendable.
Linear and directed episodes have not gone away either. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an action game where everything explodes around you or a classic «robbery» game where you constantly juggle characters, situations, and even mechanics. At some points, the game resembles Control, Bioshock Infinite, or the new Wolfenstein, and it’s a good surprise. The mission in the laboratory is visually different from the main part of the game, has a unique gameplay, and is generally one of the best in the series. But not another word, so as not to spoil your experience.
There are also small puzzles. And while there was only one mini-game with radio waves to open the safe found on the level, I even wrote down the numbers for one story puzzle at the end of the game so I wouldn’t forget. Although it turned out that the game later gave me a hint that it was actually the right solution. This is Call of Duty, not Call of Cthulhu, after all.
I’ve already mentioned the guided open locations, but the game also has a really big open location. And its presence was surprising at first, and given the experience of Modern Warfare III, even a little alarming. Then the surprise only grew when I was handed the car keys, given three main objectives, and told to go wherever I wanted.
And now I’ll surprise you, this time the open location is well done. The map shows additional points of interest that are carefully placed on the way to the main objectives. It can be just additional equipment and ammunition replenishment, or it can be a small additional mission to rescue the pilots, which will open up the possibility of hitting targets with aircraft. After destroying several air defense systems, it will be possible to call in a helicopter, which can easily shoot down enemy forces. In other words, the reward is quite practical and very useful.
There is a spy near the main targets who has already marked most of the enemies, and a sniper rifle may be waiting nearby. You can ignore all the additional activities and simply break into enemy bases, complete the primary task, and run away with your ass on fire. But the game conveniently provides various opportunities to entertain yourself, and it seems strange to me not to use them in the game. In addition, this mission consists of two parts, and all the open mechanics will come in handy in the second, linear part of it. I’d also like to note that the SUV controls are nice and reminiscent of those in Uncharted 4.
Call of Duty has always juggled calm and dynamic missions, but in recent years this formula has become too conspicuous and frankly started to burst at the seams. In Black Ops 6, this approach remains, but thanks to new mechanics, certain freedom in the style of play, and a cautious tendency to open locations, it seems to fill the old lungs with fresh air. And during the passage, the game constantly surprises with small changes in the stale series, and several times even causes sincere delight from what it sees.
The last time I played Call of Duty on PC was in Modern Warfare 2019, before the launch of Call of Duty Hub. And my experience with Activision’s new service was negative. To start the campaign, you need to go through three rounds of applications and several restarts after the update. And that’s if you’re lucky that the game doesn’t crash, and without taking into account the double shader precompilation, which can take about an hour, depending on your CPU.
As a bonus, online connectivity is mandatory, despite the fact that there are zero game mechanics in the story campaign that require an internet connection. And even if you have perfect internet, the game’s servers can crash, which happened to me in the last hour of the story.
Although the decision to make the game always online can be attributed to the fight against piracy, the game is not without some real technical problems on the PC. At the maximum water quality setting, the water starts to disappear if you look at it from a certain angle. Corpses can also move around if you lie on them. However, the most frustrating thing is the possibility of a mission softlock, which is what happened to me after an hour and a half of clearing an open location. The game asked me to talk to a key character, but all that was left of him was his backpack, and he seemed to have fallen through the ground.
The series has always been known to be prone to serious bugs, but this time even the 4-year development cycle didn’t help. Although the optimization on PC is fine, the already mentioned shader precompilation minimizes the presence of staters, and the FPS rarely drops significantly, and most of the time it stays at the average value of your system.
In the PlayStation 5 version, we didn’t see any problems at all, except for a single glitch in the cut scene before one of the missions and the aforementioned corpses, which behaves the same way on PS5. In general, the graphics are modern, and the picture is detailed and pleasant. And unlike the PC version, there is no pre-compilation. However, there is no strong visual difference between this and the previous part, at least on the console.
For a long time, Call of Duty Black Ops 6 can be awarded the title of one of the best games in the series in general, and definitely one of the best shooters of this year without any discounts. Although there are not many competitors. The longest development cycle in the series did the game good. It’s variable, it surprises, it looks good, and it’s fun to play. It’s also probably the longest Call of Duty game in terms of duration.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 became the first game in the series to be included in the Game Pass subscription upon release. This is a really big event in the gaming industry, and this decision will certainly have a significant impact on Microsoft’s gaming division. Call of Duty — is one of the few guaranteed hits that even in the worst condition sells millions of copies within hours of release.
After the acquisition of Activision, Microsoft became hostage to its own policy, according to which all its exclusives are included in the subscription service from the first day. In the short term, this will inevitably lead to a decline in game sales because if you have a PC or Xbox console, it is much more profitable to buy a subscription for 230 UAH. This is more than ten times lower than the full price of the game, which for Ukrainians is 2999 UAH regardless of platform.
You do not need to be an analyst to understand that Black Ops 6 will significantly increase the number of Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has even temporarily removed the free 14-day trial version of the service. However, it is unlikely that it will cover the profits that could have been received from the direct sale of the game.
Microsoft has decided to play the into the long. We can only watch to see if they manage to grow their service to a scale where getting a game like Call of Duty into it is economically viable here and now, rather than an investment in an unknown future.