As is the system now, It is Treyarch’s turn to release a Call of Duty, this time being Black Ops 6, where the campaign will now take place during the 1990s featuring returning characters like Woods and Adler to finally stop everything that is coming their way.
A Worthy Campaign, Feels Like A Return To Form
Staying true to what made the Treyarch’s Black Ops games so good was the enticing campaign, filled to the brim with espionage, plot twists and heavily referencing historical moments to weave in their story of how everything went down. In terms of the timeline, Black Ops 6 is indeed taking place after the events of Black Ops 2 and a story recap does show that Alex Mason is indeed dead.
As per the timeline, this takes place before we kill Menendez as Mason’s son and thus there is a possibility of seeing him return. The main focus this time is a group called the “Pantheon” who are rumored to possess a bio-weapon capable of leveling entire cities within minutes.
What is an interesting addition to the campaign is the ability to choose how to proceed with the objective per chapter, the player will get options on how to infiltrate certain areas, either through disguise or through cracking codes to gain access through the back. Most missions will take place as infiltration missions unlike what was happening in the previous entry of Black Ops: Cold War.
There is also an element of camera flair akin to how we would change characters in God of War: Ragnarök for example, with the camera shifting to the character we control in some select chapters, another welcome feature is that while stealth is encouraged the moments where the mission would fail if stealth isn’t maintained are few and far between.
Giving the Player More Choice
Another really good step in the right direction is a particular mission, where you are given a series of objectives tattered across a map and given the freedom to approach these objectives however you want, either take your drivable jeep and roll right into these encampments or take a more ranged approach with a sniper to scout out the enemies yourself or meet SAS snipers in select locations to get enemy locations from them.
There are other options available to the player to really customize and personalize their approach to these encampments. This freedom certainly makes the missions more enjoyable and increases replayability chances, ultimately giving us the choice how we want to approach objectives is a welcome change compared to just regular linear storytelling without us having any input.
Lets Not Forget The Multiplayer
The first thing to address is the new omni-directional input, this essentially means that as a player you can run, jump and turn basically in any direction, the player can also turn while performing a dive. This does more than its share in shaking up the general tone of what people usually expect from a Call of Duty game.
The regular prestige is back and what is new here is that each prestige there are cards, weapon skins, charms etc to unlock. This is more than a breath of fresh air as it will encourage players to keep the grind up to unlock whatever they want from the progression system. Weapons also get a lot more skins to unlock which may increase in future updates making it possible for players to get a wealth of variety when customizing their chosen gun.
However there is a genuine criticism that the number of weapons to choose from this time is much lower compared to Call of Duty games from the past. However it is very likely that as the warzone counterpart seasons progress players are likely to receive more and more weapons or get returning weapons.
Round Based Zombies Is Back
Zombies get the round-based system back from whatever disaster the previous iteration had, continuing the story from Black Ops: Cold War. We are likely to be set in Terminus Island playing as the four heads who were tasked with capturing Samantha from Black Ops:Cold War’s zombies storyline, this zombies map is sort of reminiscent of the “Mob of the dead” map from Black Ops 2 but no doubt there will be a wealth of easter eggs to hunt and trigger to piece the story together yet again.
All in all, Black Ops 6 is aiming to return to its roots but still take the story forward so as to keep its current fans engaged
