Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Review

This CoD campaign was very much a welcome surprise. When I saw the immense praise it got, I was questioning if I was going to be one of the people who liked it since I got varying degrees of enjoyment from CoD Vanguard but not so much CoD MW 2022. I can say that this is easily the most polished CoD campaign since Vanguard and the campaign that left any kind of impression on me at all since CoD MW 2019.

At first when I start the BLOPS 6 campaign, I was feeling a strong sense of "been there done that" from the corridor shooting, set pieces, following people around, combat making me feel like I was competent one minute and then I went prone just to get killed by enemies I didn't even know I was in their line of sight.

Then the second mission happened and the game turned into more of a play your way style of game, I chose stealth and the AI was accomodating and I didn't get spotted for getting into the line of sight for 5 seconds, knocking out a guard from the front doesn't alert the all the enemies nearby you, performing headshots with the silenced pistol felt consistent and easy to pull off, and the level was decently open. Sure, this isn't anything overly new for gaming as a whole but this felt like a nice change of pace from the lackluster mission preceding it.

Afterwards the home base opened up and this is a CoD campaign that somewhat rewards exploration and makes you look around levels to max out perks to get like in the multiplayer.

Best part is, these abilties I actively used due to how much CoD BLOPS 6 likes to shove in different enemies from armoured enemies, shotgunners, shield enemies, RC car spawners and enemies that threw electric mines. MW2 2022 did this too with armoured enmies but the problem in that game was that the only way to actively kill them was to just shoot them or hope that you timed your grenade throws that it effectively wiped away their health. Here, you get stim packs that slow down time, buying an ability where throwing grenades don't blow up after holding the throw button for too long, C4, RC cars, air strikes and motar strikes, some of these I wasn't using throughout the whole game but by the end, I was using them all to thin out the hordes.

It's rather impressive that a CoD campaign managed to have more going on with it's combat that isn't just aim down sights, shoot, get hit, hide behind cover, and repeat the process.

There is also not one but at least three standout missions one where you are in a warzone taking out SAM sites and there is a bunch of optional objectives to do like supplies, enemy camps and additional SAM sites. If you do all this, it makes the ending section where you can summon a chopper gunner to thin out enemies feel that much more satisfying since it felt like I earned that and took time out of my way to do it.

The bank robbery mission was memorable since it felt like a Sly Cooper game in that it's a heist but you get to play out every character's perspective while the heist is happening and it also does a good job creating a sense of place where you slowly infiltrate the bank then have an explosive exfiltration.

Under the Radar was a well made Hitman style stealth mission where the levels are open and AI is lienient enough to make moment to moment stealthing enjoyable and it makes the base raid that much more satisfying.

There are two major issues with the campaign with all this said, there are two very out place missions in BLOPS 6. The two being Emmergence and Separation Anxiety. Both are too out of place with the grounded military feel CoD campaigns go for. I did get some enjoyment out of Emmergence since I liked the hordes of enemies and the bosses but it can feel very out of place for those who don't want to play a section with zombies since that is what zombies mode is for. Also, you like the grappling hook? Have fun with only using it for one mission and it never pops up again outside of that brief movement in Separation Anxiety. Plus the entire level in Emmergence is filler and contributes nothing to the plot.

Separation Anxiety felt like an out of place trippy dreamlike level that develops a character who gets killed off in the following mission afterwards. You wanted timed first person platforming and puzzle solving in a CoD campaign? Well here you go. It's out of place to what the rest of the game is.

As a whole this campaign has so many memorable moments that the parts where it starts to have traditional linear CoD campaign shootouts can feel rather dull since Ground Control was very much that and it reminds me of all the problems with CoD shootouts that I mentioned at the start regarding the first mission.

Overall, CoD BLOPS 6 was a very welcome surprise, this franchise has been going on for some time and considering how much I was getting apathetic towards the series, I was surprised I ended up liking the campaign as much as I did. There's some stumbles here and there but this is easily the best one in a long while.