Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Campaign Single Player Review
Black Ops 6 Single Player Review
NOTE: THIS REVIEW IS ONLY ACCOUNTING FOR THE SINGLE PLAYER EXPERIENCE WITH THE CAMPAIGN AND ZOMBIES FROM A SOLO PERSPECTIVE.
There is a lot to like about this years annual Call of Duty campaign for Black Ops 6. There is the usual ultra refined mechanics and the bombastic set pieces that you’ve come to expect. More importantly, seeing the series step outside of the box, shows glimpses of greatness for what the series could be if it continues to evolve. Unfortunately, old habits die hard as there is still a lot that prevents the Black Ops 6 campaign from being the revolution it could have been.
LONG LIVE SINGLE PLAYER
It wasn’t too long ago that single player first person shooter campaigns seemed like they were being phased out. Titanfall 1, Overwatch, Battlefield 2142 and even Black Ops 4 all went without an offering for the solo first person shooting enthusiast. Luckily, Call of Duty isn’t ready to “Press F” to pay respects to the campaign just yet as the Black Ops 6 campaign shows the team trying to incorporate new ideas to shake up the formula by focusing on what the team is already good at.
The plot in Black Ops 6 is a fairly standard military based thriller with common themes like espionage, terrorism, counter intelligence, and bio technology. It isn’t too convoluted, and even for casual Black Ops campaign goers, there is the ability to understand whats happening without having to know what has happened in previous entries.
On the bright side, you can see glimpses and moments of Call of Duty becoming something greater than the usual huge budget, blockbuster first person shooter campaign that feels like a Micheal Bay movie with you either shooting or blowing everything up in grand spectacle.
Once you complete the first few missions, which follow a formulaic blueprint, you begin to see the first small change that the studio is making towards something different, which is a greater emphasis on the safe house, an idea that began in the previous black ops.
After nearly each mission, you will find yourself back at the safe house, which makes a return from 2020’s Cold War, but feels a bit more thought out this time around. Now, there is a need to outfit the safe house with things like shooting ranges and weapons benches. Unlocking and constructing these areas will allow you to take advantage of classic perks that you are likely familiar with from multiplayer. However, you cant build any of this without funds, which need to be found during missions and you should because they can make a big difference during the campaign for things like extra armor plates and bonus damage on elite enemies.
This is a clever way for the franchise to take what they are already good at, which is the perk system from multiplayer and incorporate it more into the campaign, but it’s also a smart way to entice the player to delineate from the main path during campaign missions.
Black Ops 6 also shows hints of moving away from linear gameplay after the first hour with open worlds. These aren’t true open worlds, but feel more along the lines of a Warzone map in size and feel very reminiscent of what The Coalition did with Gears of War 5. There are objectives on the map, but you also have the freedom to explore.
Unfortunately, the exploration feels relatively shallow as you just find standard events like capturing supply drop or helping fellow brothers in arms. The rewards are minor equipment that you can use in the mission. It would be something special if these completing these side missions affected the story in any way.
However, the true separation from the past is when Black Ops 6 becomes almost survival horror with the incorporation of one of its greatest strengths: Zombies. Not only does it feel fresh, but at times when combined with the storytelling, visuals and incredible audio, becomes generally terrifying. It’s also a great way to entice a campaign only player how fun and tense the zombies mode can be.
OLD HABITS
Unfortunately, there is still a lot of monotony in the campaign and an inability to break free from the past. Loads of monster closets and endless waves of reinforcements. Outside of the repetitive structure there were also plenty of decisions that didn’t make sense for the campaign
Why does the main character not have a voice? It’s jarring during a critical scene when there are huge amounts of plot exposition and every other character is having a great performance and then a line of dialogue pops up on the screen for you to select silenty and then it continues back to the other characters. It doesn’t make sense and it was immersion breaking. Do something like Mass Effect did with Shepard and allow the main character to be male or female and then record the lines for both characters. This would drastically increase immersion.
During the missions, some would culminate in a boss fight, which could easily take you down with one shot, which felt unfair and became frustrating as sometimes you would get stuck on the environment, the checkpointing system was sometimes painful and there was no way to skip lengthy boss cinematics that you already saw the first time.
Finally in the year 2024 when everyone is touting that ai is the next best thing since sliced bread, it felt extremely dated in Black Ops 6. There were a few elite enemies that would just head straight for you every time, never any one else on your squad. Why does the ai run straight to me every time? Why does my team not shoot the person who ran right past them every single time? I want the campaign and the experince to feel emergent and unique every single time, but instead, it was just figuring out what the pattern was and where was the best place to stay out of danger.
VERDICT
Black Ops 6 won’t go down in the pantheon of greatest first person shooter campaigns due to an inability to break old habits and some gameplay issues, but it might be a pivotal moment for the franchise when they started moving away and becoming less reliant on traditional elements, focusing on fresh ideas and doubling down on proven franchise strengths like perks and zombies
If you’re a fan of Call of Duty campaigns, then Black Ops 6 is the best that it’s been in a while. If you also play single player only, then when you combine the 8-10 hour campaign, which doesn't overstay its welcome thanks to variety and a zombie mode, which is fully available in solo, there is a decent value here for you.