It has been 5 years since I bought a Call of Duty so close to its release date, so I thought I would dive into the newest Call of Duty which is Black Ops 6. When I was younger, I loved the first two Black Ops games and I have recently played Cold War, so hopefully this game can live up to all its hype and deliver. The premise of the game sees Woods & Adler assemble a new team in an attempt to take down a new rogue enemy called The Pantheon.
Characters
So in this game you play as Case, an operative of the CIA and unfortunately just like Black Ops: Cold War he is a silent protagonist. I complained about it there and I will do the same here as I really do find it hard to connect to a silent character and I just wish a voice actor could have been found. They do some things to try and make him interesting but it isn't enough and it is a shame that this isn't a memorable protagonist.
Luckily, the rest of the cast are great. Damon Victor Allen reprises his role as Frank Woods and Bruce Thomas reprises his role as Russel Adler and both are great. Adler does take a bit of a step back and isn't as vital here, but he still plays a decent part in the game and I really like the character. This game is set after the events of the past storyline in Black Ops 2 meaning a lot has happened to Woods and I really liked how the game handled that issue and made Woods feel like a more sympathetic character.
Y'lan Noel Plays Troy Marshall and he is a great new character in the franchise. He is the de-facto leader of the new team and I liked how he struggled to handle it sometimes but was also a strong character. He was just a cool addition to the game and a great new protagonist.
Karen David plays Sevati Dumas & Seamus Dever plays Felix Neuman and these are also great members of this team. Sevati is a trained assassin but has a bit of a tragic past and struggles with the fact that she is good at her job. Felix is struggling with causing violence and this moral dilemma is bought up quite a lot and it is something new for a character in a Call of Duty game.
Story
The story is definitely a tale of two halves. Firstly, I really liked the team dynamic and the interactions between your squad mates, it made the world feel alive and that these characters were developing throughout. The missions are mostly really fun and I will credit the game developers for adding some real variety here and showing they really cared about this campaign. But this game overdoes it at times and doesn't feel like a COD game, it seems like it loves Zombies so much that they wanted to put it in the campaign too and it was really overused here. The ending is also really weak and feels completely out of place, focusing on a secondary character that isn't even that interesting.
Side Content
This game has absolutely loads of content here and it is once again a bit of a mixed bag. The online multiplayer is fantastic, I have maybe never had so much fun on a Call of Duty as I have had on this one when it comes to online. It does have some lag issues but it didn't hinder me too much and hopefully that will get sorted as the future content is released.
Also Zombies is back and to probably nobody's surprise, I didn't really care for it. They have just really commercialised Zombies and it doesn't have the same grit as it did before, it is all over the place and the story offers very little. I appreciate, I am in the minority in terms of not caring for zombies but I just can't deny that I am not a fan.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fantastic, as I mentioned above I had some much fun playing this game. It had that feeling of 1 more game, I couldn't stop playing and that is because of how fast it moved, how good the weapons are and how much I enjoyed the majority of the new maps. The issues I had with Cold War are mostly gone for me and this is just so much fun to play.
Graphics
The game looks fantastic on the PS5, it is a huge upgrade on Cold War and the characters look fantastic. The backgrounds are great too with the maps standing out from each other and all adding their own little bit of flavour. The weapons are also really well realised, they sound great and the game allows you to design it to your own desire.
Overall
Overall, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a good game. It improve its graphics and gameplay and shows potential in its campaign. But it falls a little short in being this legendary shooter and that is a slight shame. Hopefully Call of Duty takes all the good things they did here and look to build on that for its eventual sequels.
Rating - 7/10.
