COD NEXT interview — Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Associate Director, Design Matt Scronce and Director of Production Yale Miller

Playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 both at Call of Duty: NEXT and during the beta period has been awesome. While there is still a lot to take in and plenty of unplayed content, Treyarch has accomplished something to be proud of. There’s work to be done yet, and we sat down again (our previous discussion can be found here) with Associate Director, Design Matt Scronce and Director of Production Yale Miller to get their takes on a few questions we had after our session at COD NEXT.

One of the reasons for a beta test is to see what players are doing, and collect data on how the game is responding. There is a lot of technical stuff going on in the background that we don’t see, and being able to use that information to fine tune the experience makes for a good launch. Our first question to Matt and Yale was, “What data are you hoping to get out of the beta?”

Matt was first up, and the initial answer was spawns. He was the first designer at Treyarch that owned the spawn system, so tracking all of that data along with the team that’s behind it now is a big rock for them. The second part was the weapons data: what’s too strong, what’s too weak, what the time to kill looks like.

Yale followed up with omnimovement being a piece of the puzzle. Watching data on how often people sprint, slide, and more allows them to balance the game, especially with a mechanic like omnimovement that might enable some overpowered metas. Treyarch wants people to run, dive, shoot and more, but for nothing to be broken. A beta allows them to see what people abuse and decide if it needs to be corrected. There may even be things tweaked during the beta as Treyarch identifies certain areas of improvement.

While we’re still a ways away from the full launch of Black Ops 6, it’s never too early to start thinking about what comes after. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has set a standard for the franchise’s live service, and it’s fair to wonder how you follow that up. After all, things like special events and the Aftermarket Parts system have been very engaging. “How do you look to continue on those successes in Black Ops 6?”.

For them, it starts with the content, making cool stuff for players to engage with, like maps, gear, gadgets, and more. They do have their own plans for events, for there to always be something, but building on what Treyarch does will be how they tackle live service. One particular area Treyarch will have to entice players will be their Zombies mode. With round-based maps being back, they have plans for the biggest post-launch experience it’s ever received. Yale thinks we’ll all be happy with the sheer volume they have planned.

Even though there’s only a few maps in the beta, we had to find out which ones were Matt and Yale’s favorites. Matt is all about Pit, a Face-Off map, but included enjoying the new Kill Order mode specifically on it. He enjoys just turning off his brain and running around as the slayer. Yale likes Derelict, the abandoned train map set in West Virginia. He worked with the graphics team to push the visual fidelity of that map, and they felt great about it. This, along with the classic three lane structure and some verticality, made it his favorite.

We noticed the weapons felt pretty balanced during our time with the beta. That was before we all discovered how great the Jackal PDW SMG is, but overall it still feels like you can use different weapons without severe repercussions. They’re also well designed in each category; the submachine gun is good for flanking but not as great long range, and a sniper will shred a guy down a lane but is at a disadvantage up close. This led to the thought, “How does Treyarch do such a good job of balancing the weaponry in their games?”.

Matt and Yale gave plenty of credit to Senior Technical Designer Pablo Ortiz, the weapons lead on that team. They all sit outside Matt’s office, and every day Matt sees Pablo looking through the weapons and just tuning away at the numbers on them. He’s quite excited about the beta, as it’ll provide a ton of data for him to use from it to level the playing field even more. The team also made sure to identify the weapon archetypes to make sure they fit. As the masses get a hold of the beta, the information that will provide will assist them at playing with that balance.

Snipers also felt more crispy than previous Black Ops titles. In those, they were a little more floaty whereas in Black Ops 6, they’re a lot more steady. This made us curious, “Was the change intentional, or did the engine swap shift the design philosophy?”.

It was in fact intentional according to Matt and Yale. Given the team had to build quite literally everything from the ground up in the move to a unified engine, it enabled the teams to modify things as they translated Black Ops mechanics over. Pablo Ortiz gets his kudos again, making sure those snipers are the best ones ever in a Black Ops game. Speaking of, Treyarch really wanted to identify what makes the best Black Ops game, but the four year time period of making Black Ops 6 also gave them the time to make choices on what made the best game overall. If there are things that are better in other games, they want to improve.

All of what Matt and Yale had to say has us very excited about what’s to come in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. If you haven’t played the beta yet, you’ll be able to soon, as September 6th-9th ushers in the open format where everyone can download and play. After that, it’s full speed to launch, which is October 25th. Thanks again to Matt Scronce and Yale Miller for taking the time out of their busy schedules to talk with us at Call of Duty: NEXT!

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