We’ve been hammering the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta over the last few days, to get a feel for how Treyarch’s latest is shaping up ahead of its Xbox Game Pass launch next month. Of course, these impressions are early doors – but we have hit the beta weekend one level cap – so here’s what we think of the title so far.
Returning to its core Black Ops series, the team at Treyarch has finally moved over to the new Call of Duty engine that was first introduced in 2019’s Modern Warfare – and you can tell. For better or for worse, Black Ops has never felt more ‘Modern Warfare’ than it does here in Black Ops 6. Features like aim-down-sight reloading and tactical sprint are here, and generally speaking, the core gameplay will feel quite familiar if you’ve played the last few COD releases.
It’s a good job, then, that the game’s gunplay is still pretty much unmatched on console. Shooting feels incredibly tight, and the animation work is stellar across the board in BO6. Every weapon type, from assault rifles and SMGs to sniper rifles and shotguns, feels water-tight – and you can instantly tell why people just keep on lapping this series up, year in, year out. The gunplay is definitely a marked improvement over 2021’s Vanguard as well; the last non-Modern Warfare COD title.
When it comes to maps, we’ve had four to mess around with during the beta’s opening weekend (we should add that extra maps are also coming during weekend two). So far, we’ve got stuck into some of COD’s staple game modes on Derelict, Rewind, Scud and Skyline, and we have mixed feelings on these maps so far. Derelict has been a highlight for us — with its long-range sightlines and appealing, overgrown aesthetic — but the rest of them have felt quite generic to us so far. Our overall opinion on these maps may change down the line once the full game is out, but we don’t see any of these four becoming COD classics in years to come.
One feature that’s future is also up for debate right now is the game’s new ‘omnidirectional’ movement mechanics. Discussed extensively in the run up to release, Black Ops 6 brings an overhauled movement system to COD – in what’s perhaps the biggest core shakeup to the series since Advanced Warfare‘s jetpack-jumping back in 2014. And, to be honest, we’re not convinced by it just yet.
These advanced mechanics all feel a bit fiddly when playing on controller, at least based on our time with the beta. You’ve got new options to sprint, slide and dive in different directions, and while every now and then you pull a cool-ass move off, most of the time it feels like pointing and shooting works just as well for your average player. Black Ops 6 has quite a quick time-to-kill, quicker than Black Ops 4 and Black Ops Cold War, and that TTK feels somewhat at odds with the game’s new advanced movement mechanics. It’s hard to know which mechanics are worth engaging with in the heat of battle!
We’re also slightly wary of how omnidirectional movement will further benefit mouse and keyboard players. We know, we know, the controller vs. M&KB debate is getting a little tired these days – but we can easily see your typical play-all-day Twitch streamer abusing these movement mechanics on PC. Call us a big old noob if you’d like, but there could be a real temptation to turn cross-play off for Black Ops 6 multiplayer. We do want to add that we’ve not really seen this take hold in the beta – we’re just wary of it potentially affecting the full release. Omnidirectional movement will likely increase the game’s skill-gap, and whether that’s a good or a bad thing is largely down to personal opinion – we’ve just always seen COD as a casual shooter and we hope the series retains some of that easy playability.
With Black Ops 6, Treyarch is definitely tweaking the Call of Duty formula, and they should be applauded for that given how similar some of these releases typically are. After putting a good amount of time into the beta though, we think these tweaks have led to mixed results so far. The merging of Black Ops and Modern Warfare gunplay feels fantastic, and the speed of gameplay is right on-point, but we have reservations about the new movement mechanics – and those four initial beta maps are average at best as well.
Remember though, PvP multiplayer is just one slice of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, and the full release will deliver so much more than that for Xbox Game Pass members. Raven Software’s campaign is shaping up nicely, Zombies looks great this year, and we’ve got Warzone battle royale integration to come as well. We still have high hopes for Black Ops 6 this October, but it remains to be seen how much multiplayer we’ll be playing in this year’s release after going hands on with the beta.
Have you been playing the Black Ops 6 beta? What do you think of it? Come and discuss it with us down in the comments!
