I had the opportunity to attend Call of Duty Next this year in Washington, DC alongside media from around the world and an army of content creators to experience Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in the most epic way possible. The part of this everyone knows and sees is the official Call of Duty livestream where creator gameplay was broadcast on August 28th alongside official reveals and developer interviews, but there’s more to the event than those few hours.
I detailed my experience being a part of Call of Duty Next 2024 here and so now we’re going to look at some of the most notable and interesting changes coming to Call of Duty this year across Black Ops 6 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone. Below are highlights from a presentation we watched from team leads at Treyarch Studios and Raven Software before we visited the Call of Duty Next event venue and from my previous visit to Treyarch where Black Ops 6 was first revealed.
Black Ops 6 is primarily developed by Treyarch and Raven and it’s the first game in Call of Duty history to get four years of development time. While their last game, Black Ops Cold War, was released a year after Modern Warfare (2019) and used a dated engine, Black Ops 6 is building upon the newest engine and integrates fully into the Call of Duty HQ app and with Warzone. It’s also the first Call of Duty game to release under the Xbox banner, and it’s launching day one on Game Pass.
It’s a lot of pressure for all parties involved, but as Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch, puts it: “It feels so damn good to be able to say Black Ops is back!”
20
Black Ops 6 Multiplayer Has No Big Maps
Black Ops 6 will launch with 16 all-new maps, eight of them were playable during the beta, listed below. None of them will be too big, by design. The game is about fast, close quarters combat, not Ground War or Invasion style modes. Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch:
“We’re returning to a more kind of approachable, three-lane map design, and we’re not going to have any big maps. When we think about Black Ops Multiplayer, we think about that fast and frenetic, just small, fast-paced gameplay. So that’s where our focus has been. Our portfolio actually has trended a little bit smaller on average. So we’re going to have small and medium maps. We’re not going to have any large maps. We’ve taken learnings from the past. We’ve looked at what maps our players love, what maps they didn’t love, and we’ve adjusted our portfolio to that.”
Black Ops 6’s Core 6v6 Maps:
- Babylon
- Derelict
- Lowtown
- Payback
- Protocol
- Red Card
- Rewind
- Scud
- Skyline
- Subsonic
- Vault
- Vorkuta
Black Ops 6’s Strike Maps:
- Gala
- Pit
- Sand House
- Stakeout
Where’s Nuketown? We all know it’s coming…
19
Black Ops 6 Introduces The Most New Weapons On Day One
Given the 1991 setting of the game much of the weapon inspiration in Black Ops 6 comes from the early 90s and that means there’s going to be experimental weapons and prototypes “you’ve never heard of, very limited run stuff,” says Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch
“We’re very excited to announce with Black Ops 6 that we are bringing more new weapons that have never been before seen in the franchise on day one. So we’re going to have 12 weapons that you’ve never seen before in Call of Duty.”
In Black Ops 6 multiplayer, the new weapons will be divided between these weapon categories: Assault Rifles, SMGs, Shotguns, LMGs, Marksman Rifles, and Sniper Rifles.
18
Black Ops 6 Weapon Attachments Are Designed To Always Be A Positive
“We thought long and hard about attachments over the past several years, and at the very high level, we’re going to have very, very few cons,” Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch, tells us.
“We want it to always feel great to put an attachment on your weapon, and then you should never really be making a choice of not putting an attachment on your gun.”
The goal is for individual weapon progression to always be on an “upward trend.” However, there is one major change here. Where Modern Warfare 2 & 3 let players unlock a given attachment for one gun and unlock it for all the others that can fit it, Black Ops 6 requires players to grind out each weapon individually. The exception here is with optics.
“Optics are going to be shared within the weapon class. So if you unlock a red dot, let’s say on the XM4, you’ll be able to use that red dot every other Assault Rifle within that class, and then that’ll apply to each weapon category,” continues Scronce.
17
Melee Balance is Being Addressed (And Gets its own Slot)
One immediately noticeable change to the Call of Duty formula in the Black Ops 6 beta is that loadouts include a dedicated slot for melee weapons, so carrying a knife is a default for all players and doesn’t replace the secondary weapon slot (or secondary primary slot if you’re running the Overkill wildcard).
In-game, melee weapons function the same with a slight change. Pressing the melee button still does what it should, but holding down the melee button equips it and lets you run faster, meaning everyone can run faster with melee equipped. In Warzone, this will mean infinite tac sprint when a melee weapon is equipped. Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch:
“We will have two melee weapons at launch. We’ve also done quite a bit of tuning, because we honestly don’t want everybody kind of running around being an annoying little gnat with their knives out. We’re looking for data and analytics on it, but we have done some interesting tuning with the melee weapons.”
16
Perks Are Built Around 3 Play Styles And If you Commit To One, You Get A Bonus
As revealed in the Black Ops 6 multiplayer beta, the game brings back the three perk slots with an added layer. Each of the three slots features a subset of perks divided into three combat specialties. There are 2-3 from each combat specialty available in each of the three slots. Should you choose to fill each of the three slots from the same combat specialty, you get an added bonus. Matt Scronce, Associate Design Director at Treyarch:
“An interesting thing we’re doing here with perks is the combat specialty system. Each perk has been assigned one of three play styles at a very high level. The play styles are Slayer, Support. So support is, if you’re throwing your body on the dot point, you’re taking out any scorestreaks, and then Recon, if you’re all about Intel or counter Intel. So each perk gets one of those assignments. And then if you want to index into one of those play styles, say, I want to pick three enforcer perks, you’ll unlock the Enforcer combat specialty, and in game, you’ll receive a unique bonus that applies to that play style.”
The Combat Specialty bonus is not meant to be too overpowered to prevent players from mixing and matching the specific perks desired for each slot, but it does reinforce the idea of playing into specific roles for your team. With Wildcards, there’s “Perk Greed” which allows for a fourth perk to be selected. In Warzone, extra perks can be picked up as loot, off of downed enemies, and the Specialist perk package returns (unlocking all perks for the player) but more on that later.
More information about Black Ops 6’s global gameplay systems can be found on the Call of Duty blog here.
15
Ranked Gameplay Comes Sooner Than Ever
As the competitive scene grows in Call of Duty, both in regular multiplayer and Warzone, ranked modes (and the associated rewards for playing this way) are increasingly desired by the community and, with Black Ops 6, ranked play is coming very soon after launch.
“Treyarch has been working on rank play over the last few years, and in a lot of ways, we’ve been building towards Black Ops 6 as the definitive ranked play experience,” Lawrence Madden, Associate Design Director at Treyarch, tells us during the Call of Duty Next Pre-Brief presentation.
It’s going to be a good year for ranked, and I’m excited to announce that ranked is coming out closer to launch than it ever has in a Call of Duty, early in season one.
14
Every Prestige Gives Players A Permanent Unlock
Black Ops 6 brings back classic prestige, and it begins the same as always, with players leveling up through the starter 1-55 military levels. After that, players have the choice of choosing to prestige and relock all of their unlocks and run through the progression again. There are 10 prestiges and each time players can choose one item as a permanent unlock in case there’s something special you don’t want to part ways with.
After prestiging all 10 times, players start on the Prestige Master path which features 1000 levels to rank through with a super special and secret reward at the very end.
13
Black Ops Promises The Most Rewarding Progression System Ever
By prestiging, not only do players get one permanent unlock to keep something as they restart the unlock grind, but there are exclusive rewards for prestiging as well, themed around Treyarch’s history of Call of Duty development. Rewards include skins and charms, but also blueprints. The first Prestige is centered around World at War. Lawrence Madden, Associate Design Director at Treyarch:
“We set out with Black Ops 6 to build the most rewarding progression systems we’ve ever built in a Black Ops game, and Prestige is a big part of how you’re going to be rewarded as a player.”
“We also have a bunch of other progression systems in the game on day one, so weapon progression will be global, like it’s been the last few years. We have an updated camo system. Reticle challenges are back. Deep calling card challenges with 100% completion cards are in the game at launch,” continues Madden.
“So if you complete the set in Multiplayer, Zombies or Warzone, you’re going to get a card to show off to let everyone know you completed them. Dark Ops challenges are back.”
The latter involves discovering the challenges yourself since these aren’t outright detailed.
12
Black Ops 6 Introduces Global Weapon Builds
Building weapons and including them across modes and multiple loadouts is getting a significant and long overdue quality of life improvement thanks to Black Ops 6’s global weapons system.
“Any gun you create is a global weapon build automatically and can be put into any loadout in any mode that uses a loadout. If you edit that build, those changes permeate out through all of those loadouts,” confirms Lawrence Madden, Associate Design Director at Treyarch.
“So if you unlock a new attachment, or you want to throw a new camo on your favorite build, you don’t have to do that in every single loadout across every single mode, it just happens automatically.”
This is a notable quality of life improvement in Warzone where if the meta changes or new attachments are added in updates, you are forced to change it in all of your Warzone loadouts, and then separately again in Multiplayer. This feature could be seen in the Black Ops 6 beta but since custom loadouts couldn’t be saved in this build of the game, it was challenging and unclear when trying to have have two separate builds of the same weapon type. This should be addressed in the at launch.
“Now you can still route as many builds of your favorite gun as you’d like if you’d like to tailor builds to specific play trials, but by default, everything is connected and shared,” continues Madden.
11
Warzone Has Dedicated Camo Unlocks For the First Time Ever
Black Ops 6 brings back mastery camos and Lawrence Madden tells us that their team has “raised the bar” on them, which you can clearly see from the imagery released so far. There are four unique mastery camos for each mode as before, specifically for multiplayer an zombies, but for the first time ever, Warzone gets its own set of four mastery camos too.
“Warzone and multiplayer camos, they used to be combined. We now have camos you can only earn in Warzone, camo challenges gear for Warzone, and four unique mastery camos you can only earn in Warzone,” explains Madden.
Call of Duty: Warzone Mastery Camos
- Gold Tiger Camo: Complete all Military and Unique Camos for the Weapon and then complete the Gold Tiger Camo Challenge.
- King’s Ransom: Earn Gold Tiger Camo for all Weapons in the Weapon Class and then complete the King’s Ransom Camo Challenge.
- Catalyst: Earn King’s Ransom Camo for all Weapons in the game and then complete the Catalyst Camo Challenge.
- Abyss: Earn Catalyst for all Weapons in the Game and then complete the Abyss Camo Challenge.
10
Black Ops 6 Zombies Adds New Features & Reimagines A Few
Black Ops 6 will launch with a pair of Zombies maps and adds a few new pieces to the familiar round-based formula, including the ability to play in third-person:
- New Perk-a-Cola: Melee Macchiato (replaces gun butt with a stronger punch)
- New Field Upgrade: Dark Flare (high damage shadow damage attack that generates a high-powered beam)
- New Ammo Mod: Shadow Rift (crowd control with a chance to teleport enemies into the sky)
A few iconic elements of past Zombies modes return as well, including Gobblegums from Black Ops 3 which return, new and improved, and the Thrustodyne M23 Wonder Weapon – the infamous jet engine that sucks in zombies and shreds them. In Black Ops 6, this weapon gets a new alternate fire mode which casts a devastating area of effect blast and immediately puts the weapon on cooldown.
9
Black Ops 6 Zombies Also Makes 3 Key Quality of Life Improvements
A few quality of life changes make Black Ops 6’s take on round-based zombies a little less frustrating. Back is the option to exfil after every five rounds but added is the ability to combine resources to open passages, and more player choice.
- Shared Doors – if an individual player doesn’t have enough money to open a door, they can put what they have into it and let other players pay the rest.
- Field Upgrades – you can now change field upgrades mid-match and are not stuck with what you selected at the outset!
- Toggle Pack-A-Punch camos – sick of the bright color once you upgrade your weapon of choice at a Pack-A-Punch station? Fret not, Black Ops 6 let you use your own camos.
A directed mode for Black Ops 6 Zombies will be added post-launch that helps guide players through the Zombies experience like a main quest with objectives.
More information on Black Ops 6’s Zombies can be found on the Call of Duty blog here.
8
The New Warzone Map is Based on Nuketown
Black Ops 6’s integration into Call of Duty: Warzone begins with season 1 after launch and with it comes Area 99, an all-new Resurgence map. It’s built for 45 players, played in trios, and is inspired by Treyarch’s most iconic map: Nuketown. Miles Leslie, Associate Creative Director at Treyarch:
“We deconstructed what Nuketown was and how it was made, and really the origins and the fun of it, and we threw it all together in a pot. And what came out was Area 99.”
Area 99 is set in the Nevada desert and features 10 points of interest playing into the lore of Nuketown. You’ll see exactly how and where Nuketown maps are constructed, even where the mannequins are built.
7
You Can Shoot Doors Open
With the Black Ops 6 weapon integration into Warzone coming with season 1, a few of the game’s campaign and multiplayer features are coming with it, from the launch line-up of weapons to the Global Weapon Builds system (only works for BO6 weapons).
Also being added is another new way to open doors, simply by shooting them, making the Warzone environments ever so slightly more dynamic. Doors currently open via regular opening, sneakily opening them, bashing them open, and of course, blowing them open with grenades or other explosives.
6
All MWII & MWIII Weapons Carry Forward Into Black Ops 6 Warzone
When season 1 of Black Ops 6 integrates new features into Call of Duty: Warzone and adds the Area 99 map, your weapons, character skins, attachments, camos, etc. will carry forward as well, so your Warzone arsenal will simply expand.
“You cannot bring that into the multiplayer or Zombies,” confirms Pete Actipis, Game Director at Raven.
5
Warzone Loadouts Are Getting Wildcards
Pete Actipis, Game Director at Raven, confirms that the Wildcards added in Black Ops 6 will be launching with season 1 into Warzone as well, meaning players have some additional key decisions to make when building and choosing their first loadout in game.
“We really wanted to really change the philosophy of how we look at loadouts this year. How do we disrupt how players select their loadouts? It starts with Wildcards. Wildcards are coming into Warzone day one. And the idea here is we want you to really make the decisive choices of you really want to engage in this situation. We want you to go and purchase multiple loadouts. We don’t want two minutes into the game to have your loadout and then you’ve capped out on your level.”
From what I played at Call of Duty Next, the decision for me seems simple – I’d always choose the best possible primary since the Gunfighter Wildcard allows for eight attachments, though there could be scenarios where two entirely different primary weapons (looking at you, custom sniper rifle) could be useful and so Overkill may be the better choice for the first loadout, then swapping a primary for an 8-attachment build (and different perks) later could be useful.
“The Wildcards that we have are all going to be tuned specifically for Warzone in mind,” Actipis explains.
4
You Start With Less Perks, But Can Pick Up More
The “pick three” Perk system from Black Ops 6 also carries over the Warzone with the season 1 integration, meaning the four-perk packages of current Warzone (based on Modern Warfare 2 & 3) will be replaced.
It also means that there’s more value in the Perk Greed Wildcard which allows you to start with four perks. This change simplifies player choice and coincides with a rebalancing of the perks across the board. Some perks have been combined based on data and usefulness in current Warzone.
There are 18 perks at launch for Black Ops 6 Warzone, five of them new.
3
You Can No Longer Buy Perk Packs in Warzone
When Warzone integrates with Black Ops 6, gone will be the ability to buy a perk package of four (or now, three) Perks from a buy station. Instead, perk packs must be acquired via Loadouts with the idea being that players are encouraged to seek out more than one loadout, partly to take advantage of different Wildcard loadout modifiers and guns of course, but also so collect more perks.
Perk packs can still be acquired from downed players as loot, and the Specialist Perk package (which includes all perks) can still be acquired too. “We’re still tuning in how we’re going to give that to you,” says Pete Actipis, Game Director at Raven, when it comes to the incredibly powerful Specialist package.
2
Some Perks Are Exclusively Available as Warzone Ground Loot
Individual Perks can be found as ground loot, and some Perks are exclusively available as ground loot and will be rotated as the loot tables change season to season. Ted Timmons, Senior Creative Director at Raven:
Something else we want to switch up is this lootable Perk meta. So throughout the year, we’ll be switching them up, changing them around, and basically mixing up the games as you play.
In the build I played at Call of Duty Next, six Perks could be found as ground loot:
- Veteran
- Dexterity
- Tracker
- Cold Blooded
- Tempered
- Alertness
Two perks were exclusively available as ground loot:
“I swear you folks are sleeping on irradiated like it’s a personal favorite of mine, plating in the gas,” says Timmons.
1
Warzone Is Getting Rid of Backpacks
The original Warzone inventory system returns when Black Ops 6 integrates with Warzone 2.0 during season 1. Ted Timmons, Senior Creative Director at Raven:
“We took an opportunity with Black Ops 6 and Warzone to just revisit and revise our inventory. So the backpack’s gone.”
The team had a three-day meeting about the backpack to come to this decision says Timmons, and while the developers recognize the gameplay benefits of being able to carry more, the time spent managing inventory, especially when searching through a large pile of loot on the ground, equipping or swapping the wrong thing, etc. is time spent not playing the game. The ultimate benefits of the backpack, carrying extra armor plates and ammo, are handled in a new way.
“The backpack has some really good stuff with it, like being able to carry more armor, being able to carry more ammo. So we moved those into satchels, and we see this as an opportunity, as a feature that will expand upon over the course of the year,” explains Timmons.
More information on Warzone’s Black Ops 6 integrations can be found on the Call of Duty blog here.
