The campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a much-needed revitalization of the venerable first-person shooter game and is a spy thriller deserving of its moniker. It examines what has historically made the greatest CoD single-player modes so outstanding and, to great results, adds its own innovative and thrilling concepts. Black Ops 6’s captivating variety and remarkable size offer a fantastic return to form while telling one of the most captivating stories the series has ever seen.
Military action films have been a major influence on CoD campaigns since the 2003 original. This trend began logically with classic World War II films like Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day and then moved on to more recent influences, particularly the panoramic but still cramped camerawork of Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down.
However, the focus switched from full-scale war theaters to spy thrillers modeled after the Bourne and Mission: Impossible series, starting with Black Ops in 2010 and developing into a sophisticated, captivating form with Black Ops 6. In 1991, amidst reports of the development of a potentially revolutionary bioweapon, the returning Adler and Woods pair up with a fresh group of proficient operators to fight a new menace known as The Pantheon. There was plenty of espionage action during the Cold War in 2020, but most of Black Ops 6’s missions took place in the shadows far behind the frontline rather than on its flashes and booms.
This is particularly well-exemplified by two missions: the High Rollers casino heist and the Most Wanted infiltration of a political banquet. The former gives you three options for how you want to accomplish your goal—I enjoyed playing with a silent auction, but other options will put your espionage skills to the test. Although your choice does not affect the plot in any way, it does make the otherwise linear levels more replayable. In the heist, on the other hand, you alternate between many members of your banned crew, dispersed across opulent slot machine settings and the musty subterranean canals below. Although you can not switch characters at will, the deft character baton passes offer an additional touch of cinematic flair.
You have a fun degree of freedom in how you approach missions.
Stealth is frequently encouraged, but going loud is almost always an option (thankfully, instant-fail stealth only shows up once or twice). I felt like a silent assassin when I kept to the shadows or hidden underwater, but when I slipped I had to quickly switch to a more combative style. There is also a fun amount of flexibility in how you approach other missions.
Crucially, gunplay excels in both areas. The thrilling new “on movement” system makes rattling SMGs and punching shotguns feel fantastic when manically darting in and out of cover, and suppressed headshots ping brains out of heads in a single trigger pull. With this entirely redesigned mobility mechanism, you may run in any direction and perform your greatest gun-fu-style stunts by jumping sideways into the air while firing.
Additionally, there is a strong sense of improvisation. Because ammunition is occasionally kept shrewdly scant, weapons must be continuously discarded and changed with whichever rifle is within reach. This also holds for the more do-it-yourself ways of eliminating foes that are accessible, such as snatching knives off of cutting boards and hurling them into heads. Once more, it gives me the impression of an espionage action film, allowing me to assume the role of John David Washington for a short time, brutalizing his way through a Tenet restaurant kitchen.
It is never dull thanks to the range of its levels and excellent presentation, but it also takes endurance: Black Ops 6 is one of the longest Call of Duty campaigns by historical standards; it took me about eight hours to complete, which is about twice as long as the dreadful task chain in Modern Warfare 3. Although it is not Baldur’s Gate 3, that is a reasonable amount of time for a shooter campaign.
I had a terrific time discovering the buried KGB secrets hidden in your spacious Bulgarian manor. Each puzzle successfully adds even more variation to an otherwise (as predicted) gun-heavy experience, even while none of them are brain-testing—most of them either require memorizing a string of numbers or using trial and error to open terminals. It is an excellent spot to plan for heists, undercover operations, and the unexpected. It is shockingly involved and a fantastic upgrade on an idea that started as a modest abandoned garage in the Cold War of 2020.
With which… Perhaps the campaign’s greatest mission, which I will not reveal too much about here to avoid giving anything away, draws inspiration from earlier Black Ops hallucinogenic episodes to produce a visual and level design that references games like BioShock, Prey, and Control. It is difficult to predict which of Black Ops 6’s many outstanding missions will be most cherished in the end, but I have a hunch it might be the most bizarre, solidifying its status as an all-time favorite.
However, this does not imply that you are excluded entirely from more conventional fighting areas. You do spend a few missions in the Middle East in the 1990s, and the tale of Black Ops 6 is set against the backdrop of the first Gulf War. Innovating on the Call of Duty template, best seen in a mid-game objective as grandiose in scope as any I have yet seen from this series of games, enables the mission design to return to its modern military roots.
A special mention must also be given to the excellent animation that is on show, a technical aspect of Call of Duty that is sometimes overlooked. It is top-notch work, whether it is the precise gun reloads, the mechanical skill with which your guns fire while you are playing, or the realism of the cutscenes.
Verdict
It is the best Call of Duty campaign in a long time thanks to a fantastic series of objectives that provide freedom and variety. Black Ops 6 is a great comeback for the franchise, letting Raven’s designers use all of their techniques to keep you guessing at every turn. It effectively distinguishes each chapter from the others while preserving a high standard of quality throughout. It surpasses expectations in terms of level design and inventiveness, packing a compelling plot that gets better the longer it runs. This demonstrates that CoD campaigns still have what it takes to compete with the best first-person shooters when given the time to be properly crafted.
