Multiplayer in Call of Duty has been an interesting bag the last few years. With Treyarch out of the picture (mostly), we’ve seen Vanguard along with Modern Warfare II and III vie for your attention. While I’ve certainly been invested in each one, I wouldn’t blame anyone for critiquing the direction of any of those games. With Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 entering the arena this year, and after playing it at Call of Duty: NEXT, I think we might not only have a potential best multiplayer shooter of the year on our hands, but a contender for top dog in the franchise.
There’s something about Treyarch’s design that evokes freshness. Whether it’s the pacing the team sets for the operators, or their signature style on a 6v6 map, it’s safe to say that their signature novel approach has returned in Black Ops, albeit with a dash of Modern Warfare in there given the switch to the unified engine. Don’t let any of that worry you though; this is a Black Ops game through and through.
The start of this fresh approachis the omnimovement system. While it may sound like a buzzword to some, this spices up the gameplay in a way I didn’t expect. It makes complete sense as well – the world’s best soldiers should be able to sprint in any direction. The biggest hurdle, then, is making it a part of your movement style; the muscle memory isn’t built in yet. Even so, I saw the trickles of it working, like when I dove around a corner and let my LMG rip a guy who was trying to make a hasty dash around the corner. I’m sure eventually someone will figure out how to break it (looking at you Shotzzy), but for now it’s nice to see the possibilities. There’s also an omnimovement training course coming in the beta, which we asked about in an interview with Associate Director, Design Matt Scronce and Director of Production Yale Miller that you can find here.
Maybe it’s me, but the pace feels slower than what I’m used to from Modern Warfare III. I don’t want to say that definitively quite yet – I’ve only played so much of this and beta is just around the corner – but it’s a good change so far. My initial impression is that it settles into a nice flow in Black Ops 6, because if it were clunky, I’d immediately notice. Black Ops 6 might not be as cracked out as Modern Warfare III’s slide canceling, but the ballet of movement is smooth.
Blended with all these fresh movement mechanics is some truly world-class gunplay. I say this in almost every Call of Duty preview or review I do, and it’s true – there’s nothing as great as the gunplay of a Call of Duty game. The team spends a great deal of their development time on it, and we see it time and again. The time-to-kill is a little faster than Cold War was, but it still feels really good. The indicator box with the weapon and information that lead to your demise also return, and it’s still in line with what you have now in Modern Warfare III: roughly four to five bullets will be enough to take you down. Don’t worry when you see the HUD with 100 health, TTK is not an issue in this game.
I’m missing my AK-74u from my visit to Treyarch in the beta build, but all the guns here are a good representation of the overall arsenal, and there’s already a decent balance emerging. I’ll have to do more testing to figure out the best attachments, but so far every weapon fits in its class correctly. I’m not frying a guy across the map with a submachine gun, assault rifles are do-it-all, LMGs slow you down even when you have the right attachments, and snipers are great at a distance but can get you in trouble in an up close gunfight. Speaking of snipers, in Treyarch games I’ve found them to be a bit floaty while aiming down sights. Using the SVD, that wasn’t an issue, and I’m excited to work on my sniper skills in Black Ops 6.
With attachments on my brain, let’s talk about loadouts. This is going to be almost identical to the systems in Cold War. Added in is a dedicated melee slot (which is a cool way to gain faster movement), along with an additional buff if you select three of the same class of perk. There are only three different classes of perks for now, for a total of twenty-one of them, so I’m curious if anything will be implemented in the future given the usual run of seasonal perk drops. Also, there aren’t a lot of attachments available, so you can thankfully scroll through the list within moments now.
While the weapons are a draw, the maps are a heck of a good time. Treyarch has skewed to smaller maps in the past, and that isn’t changing. There won’t be any big maps in multiplayer; expect a lot of close engagements. Beyond that, each map has such a unique feel to it, whether you’re sprinting through a 90s shopping center’s movie rental store, or firing on an enemy position from a loose panel on a giant radar dish, Treyarch has captured frenetic combat on battlegrounds that have distinctive flair. They’ve also stuck with the tried-and-true three lane design, which feels right and flows well, allowing you to use whatever weapon tickles your fancy while ensuring no one is going to be able to post up and wreck people without consequence.
New in Black Ops 6 — a mode that I’ll be playing a lot is Kill Order. In Kill Order, a player on each team is designated as the HVT, or high-value target. While that player is alive, they earn more score for the team, and taking out the enemy HVT will give your team a bonus. The HVT benefits from an armor boost and a downed state from which they can be revived, so it’s not easy taking them out. It feels like a souped-up Team Deathmatch, adding an objective to your killing. Again, Treyarch is injecting something fresh into the formula, and I’m here for it.
There’s still a lot left to feel out during the beta, such as trying out different guns, maps, and modes, or certain revelations that we won’t get until launch, like how the progressions systems feel. It’s nice knowing that Prestige is going back to the old school model, but until I use it I won’t understand the flow. Ranked Play will also return in Season 1, so there’s that whole other section of multiplayer to engage with. One thing is certain, however, if four years of development have led to the beta feeling this epic, the full release is going to be one of the best Call of Duty games thus far.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releases on October 25th. It will be available Day One on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, and purchasable for Xbox Series and One consoles, PlayStation 5, and PC. Make sure you pre-order now to access the Multiplayer Beta, which arrives August 30th for pre-orders or Xbox Game Pass subscribers, and stay tuned right here at GamingTrend.com for all things Call of Duty.
David Burdette is a gamer/writer/content creator from TN and Lead Editor for Gaming Trend. He loves Playstation, Star Wars, Marvel, and many other fandoms. He also plays way too much Call Of Duty. You can chat with him on Twitter @SplitEnd89.
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