Call of Duty is back! Let’s freaaaaking goooooooooooooooooooo!
Ahem.
Now that’s over and done with, I can tell you about my experience with the Black Ops 6 Open Beta over the last couple of weeks. I was lucky enough to be provided a code from Activision so we here at CouchSoup.com can take a gander at the upcoming game’s Multiplayer mode, complete with new movement mechanics, guns, and sweats.
It’s important to remember that Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is much more than just the multiplayer mode, containing a full campaign, Zombies mode featuring the return of Richtofen (hi Nolan North!), and the return of MOTHER FREAKING Verdansk to Call of Duty Warzone.
However, I only had experience with Multiplayer. And, you know, it’s more Call of Duty…
As always, the way it feels to shoot guns in Call of Duty is magic. There’s something about how Call of Duty does gunplay that is truly exceptional. In Black Ops 6, there are subtle changes, though. For example, moving towards the edge of a wall will cause your character to lean automatically in a similar way to mantling did previously. In general, though, it’s all very familiar.
I don’t know enough about the specific guns in the Beta, but they all felt how you would expect. A submachine gun felt like a submachine gun. A sniper felt like a sniper. A grenade explodes like a grenade. I can tell you that Multiplayer is not a place for noobs, mainly for one reason: TTK (time to kill).
Oh, right, I need to remind you: I suck at Call of Duty. I’m a bot in every sense of the word. My Warzone KD is something like 0.42, dying twice as many times as I kill anyone. So when it takes anywhere from one to three bullets, and significantly less than one second in real-time, to kill you, it feels unfair. It’s not fun to die so often without a fair chance of retaliating. What was great, though, was the almost instantaneous respawn. At least it gets you back in the fight ASAP.
I played on PS5, so I made use of the benefit of the console edition’s aim-assist. The subtle snap to an enemy close to my crosshairs is bliss but not so overpowering that you think you’re cheating (although let them PC players tell me I am!).
The new thing everyone seems to be excited about is something called omnidirectional movement. This is where you can sprint and/or dive in any direction you want. It looks so cool to do. To perform the dive, you need to sprint, then press circle (or the equivalent on your controller or keyboard of choice), and hold a direction. It’s awesome to see it carried out correctly.
But I’m a bot. Omni-directional movement adds to the mechanics that either I won’t use, won’t use properly, or are actively making my time in the game worse. Let me explain.
I tried using omnidirectional movement in multiple ways during the Beta. I tried to dive around corners to take down some camping fools, but I instantly died because enemies were waiting for me. I tried using it to avoid enemy fire, but the finishing position of a dive is incredibly precarious, lying prone on the floor or flat on your back. It doesn’t work for me, so I won’t use it. However, skilled players will freaking love it, zooming around the map like a child after eating a full bag of candy, and as lethal as them too.
Omni-directional movement makes the skill gap greater from me to other players. I see a reduction in my already terrible KD in the future.
Maps are maps are maps. They seemed fairly standard but with a couple of extra surprises. The first I experienced was a derelict trainyard. It contained lots of cover and tons of places to lie in wait for unsuspecting bots. The second was a mansion which had some nice surprises, like hidden passageways. Choke points in the mansion were too abundant, in my opinion, and it was difficult to break through enemy lines. Both maps were serviceable.
Killstreaks are something I wasn’t able to try out because, again, I suck at Call of Duty. I wasn’t able to try enough of these streaks to assess their usefulness. I know there’s an airstrike streak, which is utterly useless when the map is primarily indoors, like the mansion. However, I couldn’t reach the scores needed to use them myself.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 (multiplayer specifically) is exactly what you’d expect. It’s more Call of Duty, and that’s not a bad thing. For the most part, Call of Duty has been a great first-person shooter year after year. This year won’t be any different.
Has Black Ops 6 rejigged the formula a little? Yeah, a tiny bit. I think the changes to movement will appease streamers and sweats, but for people like me, it may be too much to handle. It probably will increase the skill gap even further, meaning more deaths and more frustration.
It’s great they tried a thing, but in the end, it doesn’t matter. The core game is still Call of Duty, and you get what you expect: more Call of Duty.
That can be enough.
