Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a triumphant return for the series after a thoroughly disappointing 2023 release. It’s a bombastic worldwide adventure that pulls out every trick possible. You have your classic, non-stop Michael Bay epic moments. A wide-open mission that lets you tackle objectives in your own way for over an hour. Even zombies-style horror that somehow makes in universe sense.
My main issue is that the story gets slightly silly by the end. Not just action and body count wise but on the psychological side of things. It’s available day one on Game Pass on Cloud, Console, and PC so let’s break down why this title worked so well.
Spy Games
For the majority of Black Ops 6’s campaign, you will play as “Case”. Your character is seemingly steeped in mystery though it sorta came out of nowhere to me. Things begin with a typical, over-the-top mission in Iraq to capture a defector. Things go sideways, as they tend to do in Call of Duty, and a global jaunt is on. This is a Black Ops title, and developer Treyarch is all-in on their “what if conspiracy theories were real” type of story.
Enemies and friends change sides, mostly with solid logic and occasionally with a few “I must have missed something” scenarios. The most mysterious ends up being your character, whom, by the end of the game still has some unanswered questions. The rumor for 2025’s Call of Duty title is a near future set Black Ops 6 “expandalone” type of release. I’m curious if Case and some of the team are still around if that turns out to be true.
Control-wise if you played the MP beta you know how good this movement feels. The Omni-movement system is here and aiming on an Xbox controller feels like a dream. There’s some heavy aim assist by default and I turned it down to have more direct control. Everything is snappy, buttons are laid out in familiar, logical ways, and it’s GOOD Call of Duty. It is one of the biggest IPs on the planet, and this is the reason why.
Exotic locales
Black Ops 6 is a damned good-looking game. Playing on an Xbox Series X with 120hz mode enabled for smoother camera aiming the only issue is with reconstruction artifacts. There’s a heavy shimmering on hair and other fine detail textures that can look a bit off. You can choose to have the game, which is roughly 60 GB for the campaign, download high-res textures on demand. I have 1 GB internet and it worked well, though pop-in from low-rez to high-rez textures occurred a few times during my roughly 9 hours with the campaign.
It’s a globe-trotting adventure, moving from America to the Middle East and beyond. You’re a small, shadowy group and the missions mostly have you working either alone or with a small number of teammates. They smartly break this up by having a long mission in which you are fighting alongside a large group of soldiers to break up the pace. As stated in the intro you’ll get linear, open-world, mostly stealth, and classic bombastic CoD levels.
My favorite was the open-hub style mission where you are in the Iraq desert, striking at targets to help out a large squad. It felt like a single-player warzone, in a good way. You’ll earn various kill streak style powerups to use on your equipment wheel, accessed by holding Up on the D-Pad. The game uses most of Call of Duty’s recent innovations like armor you can equip on the fly, turrets from Zombies, and some fun surprises. While the desert levels feel like a typical “army invades middle east and shoots anyone in sight” mission, there are some beautiful civilian locations to shake things up.
Taking the fight home
Two of my favorite levels, of the 11 on offer (not counting in-between ‘home’ missions) were a Bill Clinton fundraiser and a Casino. The fundraiser has you need to tackle a specific problem, and to do so you have three options on offer. This happens again with a later mission and alongside the home upgrade system offers great replayability.
You’ll have a home base called the Rook, in which you can replay missions, start up new ones, and solve mysteries. Alongside all that you can have conversations in the Rook and during missions where you have full-on Skyrim-style conversations with dialogue options. Most of the time it’s just exhausting your choices but a few times you’ll need to remember specific info to answer certain questions correctly.
Inside the Rook, you’ll have three separate systems to spend cash you find on missions to upgrade your character. I had one bug with Black Ops 6 and it was a glorious one. After finding the combination to a safe in a later game mission instead of giving me $1000, it gave me 10 billion. This let me buy every upgrade and turn my character into a god of death.
The story is good enough.
The gameplay is ace, the graphics are ace, and the story is almost great. Call of Duty titles always have a big bad, and Black Ops 6’s is a bit weak. I didn’t dislike the character, it just didn’t feel properly built up. That may be on me missing key info during levels. Treyarch is infamous for hiding tons of puzzles/items in their titles. I searched high and low in the Rook and whenever I could on missions and still felt a bit flummoxed when the reveal occurred.
It definitely feels like the story, while settled for the most part, is building up to a lot more. You get a lot of answers, just not everything. I will be curious, as I said earlier, to see if next year’s title picks any of the few dangling plot threads back up. The writing and voice acting are as high quality as you’d expect from a title with this insane a budget.
The OST tracks are thumping and set the frenetic pace for combat. Some classic 90s Nine Inch Nails kicking off while using a helicopter machine-gunner call-in was delightful for my old ass, as well. Like I said earlier it looks damned good graphically on a Series X, outside of the shimmer on certain objects. It isn’t noticeable in combat but the game has a surprisingly diverse set of mission types and you can see it during the slower parts.
Once again the “power of the cutscene” rears its ugly head, and sees your hard earned “win” at the end of a long fight sometimes stripped away. It might be a me thing but I grow tired of it in so many games. You bust your ass and then lose because of the script, no matter what.
Wrapping Things Up
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Campaign is excellent. While the story might not be perfect it was just logical enough to keep me happy. It’s available at launch for Xbox Game Pass Console, PC, and Ultimate members on Cloud, Console, and PC. I’d only recommend a purchase if you’re into the MP and Zombies as well, as $70 is a big ask. Still, if you’re looking to shoot the ever loving shit out of a lot of people, there’s nothing quite like a good Call of Duty campaign. It helps that this one is great.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Plays great
- Looks damned good
- Good enough story
- Level variety is high
CONS
- Gets a bit silly by the end
- Losing in cutscenes is annoying.