Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 review: back with a bang

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 feels like a throwback in the very best of ways. Lead developers Treyarch and Raven Software have smartly combined some of the most successful elements from entries across the long-running first-person shooter (FPS) series to craft a highly polished experience that excels in almost every regard. 

Classic systems such as the traditional prestige mechanics, which offer the most dedicated online players the opportunity to partially reset their progress for exclusive rewards, or the simple but effective weapon attachments still haven’t lost their luster in 2024. It’s not all things that we’ve seen before though, as a handful of clever new innovations, like the flagship ‘omnimovement’ system, and the most high-fidelity graphics we’ve seen yet successfully drive the franchise forward and keep each facet of the experience feeling fresh.

The result is one of the best FPS games in almost a decade and a must-play for fans of the genre. There are still a couple of sore spots, like a handful of poorly designed multiplayer maps, that hold things back from total perfection, but, with plenty of new content on the way through a barrage of seasonal updates, the next twelve months of Call of Duty are well-positioned to be some of the greatest yet. 

On the run

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign picks up roughly ten years after the story of 2020’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Set in 1991, it’s loosely centered around the events of the Gulf War, though with more of an eye towards covert espionage than boots-on-the-ground conflict. You play as a group of CIA operatives, sent into Iraq to intercept the Iraqi Minister of Defense and bring him back to the government in one piece.

As you might expect, this simple task goes wrong in a matter of minutes when a mysterious military force emerges from the shadows to thwart your mission. Reunited with the fan-favorite rogue spy Russel Adler, it soon becomes apparent that this organization, known as Pantheon, has close ties with the CIA, forcing the team off the grid. It’s a classic Mission Impossible-style premise and, while nothing particularly complex or sophisticated, is a perfectly serviceable framework for a series of absolutely stellar set pieces.

Variety elevates every moment campaign, with all manner of surprising mechanics and environments crammed into its roughly nine-hour runtime. There’s a refreshingly open assassination segment early on, with a variety of possible approaches that incentivises at least a couple of replays. Later on, you’re stealthily infiltrating a political fundraising event, investigating different possible leads, and scanning clues with a high-tech spy camera before a hair-raising motorcycle chase. 

One highly memorable mission even takes on a wholly unexpected survival horror edge, equipping you with an overpowered grapple hook and bombarding you with legions of imagined zombies and powerful boss monsters.

In between each mission, you’re sent back to your safehouse, which offers its own suite of activities. Levels are littered with cash, which can be hoovered up and spent on safehouse upgrades to unlock new perks and gear going forward. Quite a few puzzles are hidden across its grounds too, giving achievement hunters plenty of incentive not just to blitz through the story.

This is also without a doubt the best-looking campaign in Call of Duty history, surpassing even the visual excellence of 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Multiple areas are breathtakingly realistic, with absolutely stunning, highly detailed textures and advanced lighting effects. Some of the more abstract scenes also allow the developer to really show off its artistic chops, with bright primary colors and an effective dream-like atmosphere. Performance is delightfully smooth on PlayStation 5 to boot, with resolutely stable frame rates even in the most intense moments. 

Back to basics 

This year’s multiplayer experience smooths out many of my biggest frustrations with recent entries, returning to a formula that will feel immediately familiar to long-time fans. The painfully convoluted weapon attachment system of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is no more, superseded by a simplified selection of accessories that still offers plenty of customization without ever seeming overwhelming.

Rather than countless barely distinct options, each attachment category is populated by a handful of more significant mods. Some provide little buffs, while others bring much bigger bonuses alongside a noticeable drawback or two. Player perks have also been whittled down and are finally available right from the start of a match rather than staggered intervals. 

You can choose up to three per loadout, with every perk sorted into a distinct Enforcer, Recon, or Strategist category. While you are free to mix and match between these categories to create your own custom builds, equipping three perks of the same type yields some very powerful bonuses. Picking three Enforcer ones, for example, gives you a major movement speed and health regeneration boost after each successful kill. These combinations are significant enough to tangibly impact play, but everything is still well balanced with no particular set taking a clear lead.

The brand-new ‘ominmovement’ system, which lets you sprint, slide, and dive in any direction, is well integrated and leads to countless thrilling moments. Diving backwards off a tall ledge while peppering an enemy with bullets feels completely natural and it’s almost hard to believe that movement hasn’t always been this way. Combined with the high number of more compact 6v6 maps in its 16-map line up, most online matches have an absolutely incredible sense of pace. 

There are some notable exceptions, though, mainly thanks to a small number of quite poor maps. Scud, which is set against the ruins of a decimated desert outpost, is a particularly sore example with far too many open sightlines that encourage slow games to a crawl as players favor sitting in key positions with sniper rifles. Rewind, a delightfully 1990s strip mall, is significantly better but still feels a little empty in a 6v6 format given its large size. These complaints will almost inevitably be addressed in future updates as more maps arrive, but it does still slightly dampen the online experience at launch.

Army of the dead

The round-based zombies mode is another area where Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 borrows plenty from past games. For the uninitiated, the Zombies mode is deceptively simple – you drop into one of two maps with up to three friends and try to survive against increasingly powerful waves of the undead. Mowing down shambling creatures yields cash, spent on unlocking new areas of the map, buying new weapons, or sticking your gear through a Pack-a-Punch machine for an additional bit of kick. It’s an incredibly effective formula and significantly more enjoyable than the more open-world Modern Warfare Zombies found in last year’s game.

That’s far from everything to discover, however, with a raft of easter eggs ranging from cute little references to entire story sequences hidden for the most dedicated players. Exclusive cosmetics, secret achievements, and plenty of level XP reward those who dig deep. I’ve already spent hours in the Zombies mode and, while I did manage to survive to round 41 and find the hilarious zombie bowling minigame on the Liberty Falls map, I still feel like I’m barely scratching the surface of everything that it has in store.

All three major components of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 are an absolute blast and are so brimming with content that they would even work well as entirely standalone games. As a complete package, the level of quality here is something that we haven’t seen from the franchise in years. Call of Duty is well and truly back. 

Should I play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

There are plenty of accessibility features in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. This includes a wide array of subtitle options for the campaign, and the ability to customize the colors of the entire UI and apply a range of visual filters.

The controls can be fully remapped across the board in both controller and keyboard play, with a range of assist settings that can remove the need to hold certain inputs if required.

How I reviewed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

I’m a regular Call of Duty player with prior experience reviewing the series in addition to a wide range of other FPS titles. I completed the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign in a single sitting, clocking in at roughly ten hours including the time I spent exploring the safehouse and replaying a few missions.

I then spent around twenty hours (and counting) in its multiplayer mode, trying out all of its available playlists and maps. During that time I reached the maximum level and began Prestige 1. I also played multiple Zombies matches with friends and solo, getting to grips with its mechanics and the two launch maps.

I played on PlayStation 5 using a DualSense Wireless Controller. For audio, I relied on a pair of Astro A50 X headphones, which I found really helped the detailed sound effects shine. Throughout my time with the game, I compared my experience with that of other Call of Duty games. 

First reviewed October 2024.