Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 review – The best COD of the generation

I’ve always preferred the Black Ops series to Modern Warfare. It’s all Call of Duty, at the end of the day, just different flavors. In my memory, Modern Warfare is a series of desert landscapes, punctuated by the odd grassy field or colorful favela. My memory of Black Ops is completely different, a swim through hazy CIA and soviet mindgames, the numbers – the damn numbers – and of couse, a healthy helping of the undead for weekends with friends. Modern Warfare is a military game played as straight as possible, and Black Ops is its weird cousin.

I feel like that’s been true ever since the main menu of the first Black Ops, where you are strapped into a chair and can look at different monitors to select modes. Or, you could mash your way out of the chair, run around the room, and play Zork on the PC in the corner. See what I mean? Weird. Black Ops 6 isn’t quite that quirky, but an extra year in the oven has allowed Treyarch to build what feels like the most fully-featured and complete Call of Duty game I’ve played at launch in years.

As always, we kick things off with the campaign, and I believe that this is a top-tier Call of Duty campaign. It’s not the best, and it won’t blow away anyone that’s played something like Titanfall 2, but for Call of Duty standards it’s an absolute breath of fresh air. There are more opportunities than ever to choose different paths and tackle objectives in an order you choose, instead of being funnelled down a linear hallway. The end result is the same, of course – shoot a bunch of bad guys that spring out from cover – but a few seconds to check the map every few minutes does a lot to make you feel you’re responsible for how the game plays out.

Things change up in the two missions where Call of Duty abandons its usual assortment of soldiers for zombies and mannequins. They’re hallucinogenic trips – they have to be in order to fit into a “grounded” military series – and they feel like an excuse Treyarch has come up with to do something a bit different. The levels do break the Call of Duty mold – there’s even a boss battle which you can take out with sentry turrets – which is nice to see, but it’s hardly revolutionary for the FPS genre.

It’s slightly more interesting outside of the missions, when you return to The Rook, your safehouse, where you can interact with the rest of the cast or even solve a few optional puzzles. It does a lot to help flesh out the cast of characters, though they still don’t shake off the usual military FPS archetypes.

Over the course of the story Case and the crew end up taking out countless soldiers – many of them American military – and when things wrap up Livingstone, head of the CIA, still applauds Woods and Adler for protecting the country and provides them as much government funding as they want, all off the record. It’s more than a bit jarring, but at least it’s not the usual selection of Russian/Japanese/Middle Eastern mobs.

Zombies mode has always been a staple of Treyarch’s Call of Duty games, and unlike Modern Warfare III’s atrocious Warzone-style Zombies mode, Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode is mostly a return to tradition. Not quite the World At War tradition, but a lot closer to a more condensed version of Black Ops 2’s TranZit. Running from one edge of the map to the other is quick enough on Liberty Falls and the main locations on Terminus (though when you factor in Terminus’ large bodies of water it gets more complicated).

These maps are still jam-packed with easter eggs for you to uncover as you play through the rounds, and the main story path might be obtuse, but it feels immensely rewarding to complete. Both Liberty Falls and Terminus are fantastic Zombies maps, and make me incredibly optimistic about any maps coming in the future of Black Ops 6.

The multiplayer is also very good – though the omni-directional movement doesn’t quite present the revolution I’d hoped for. Frankly, mantling sideways is a bit disorienting, and I only ever do it accidentally, and I just don’t use the slide and dive as often as I should. Still, it’s a solid offering, and feels dozens of times better than last years’ Modern Warfare III.

In many ways Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a return to form for an annual franchise that was growing increasingly stale. But it required an extra year of development time, and that leaves me wondering what Microsoft will do with the series next. It seems unfeasible to release a game of this quality on an annual basis in 2024, even with a dozen studios contributing to the effort. Black Ops 6 just might be the last time a Call of Duty game is this good on launch, unless the release schedule gets a complete overhaul.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a great Call of Duty game when those are growing fewer and further between. It’s the best Call of Duty game on the latest generation of consoles, and it’s available to play on Xbox and PC via Xbox Game Pass. Last year’s COD might’ve been the biggest rip off of 2023, but Black Ops 6 stands as the most robust FPS release of 2024. Enjoy it while it lasts, because there’s no guarantee the series will reach these highs ever again.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: Xbox Series X