Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is a 2024 first-person shooter video game co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the twenty-first installment of the Call of Duty series and is the seventh main entry in the Black Ops sub-series, following Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020). Set during Operation Desert Storm, Black Ops 6's single-player story follows rogue CIA operatives Troy Marshall and Frank Woods as they assemble a team of agents to hunt down Pantheon, a paramilitary group with covert ties to the agency.
As with previous titles in the series, the game also includes a multiplayer component and the cooperative round-based Zombies mode; all three modes feature omnidirectional movement mechanics, allowing players to sprint, dive, and slide in any direction. Black Ops 6 boasts a four-year development cycle—the longest in Call of Duty history. Marketing for the game began in May 2024, through the release of several live-action teaser trailers and the publishing of fictional advertisements on the front pages of multiple newspaper outlets; a full reveal debuted following the airing of the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase event on June 9. Black Ops 6 was released on October 25, 2024, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Upon release, Black Ops 6 received generally favorable reviews from critics, achieved the largest launch weekend in the franchise's history, and was nominated for several accolades. All three modes were met with praise; critics positively highlighted the new omnidirectional movement system and the mission design of the game's single-player campaign.
Like previous entries in the Call of Duty series, Black Ops 6 is a first-person shooter, featuring a single-player campaign, a multiplayer component, and the cooperative round-based Zombies mode. New gameplay mechanics in Black Ops 6 include omnidirectional movement, which allows players to sprint, dive, and slide in any direction; the game also offers various "Intelligent Movement" settings, which automate certain player actions, including sprinting and mantling. Players are also able to choose between a selection of established presets that alter the game's heads-up display (HUD); this includes a "Legacy" preset for the Zombies HUD that more closely matches the layout for the HUD in Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015).
The single-player campaign features multiple ways to approach its missions and includes dialogue trees for its cast of non-player characters (NPCs). In-between missions, players are able to access a safe house, where they can plan out missions via an evidence board and interact with NPCs. Players can also use cash, which is found throughout missions, to purchase various "Operator Perks" that grant improvements to weapons and equipment. In most missions, players assume the role of rogue CIA operative William "Case" Calderon, but some missions see players taking control of other characters. Certain campaign missions reward players with cosmetic items for use in the multiplayer and Zombies modes upon their completion, including weapon blueprints, player skins, stickers, and weapon charms.
Black Ops 6's multiplayer includes sixteen brand-new maps at launch; twelve of these maps are designed for the game's core six-versus-six (6v6) game modes, and are supplemented by four "Strike" maps, which are designed for both the core 6v6 modes and a selection of two-versus-two (2v2) modes. Returning multiplayer-specific features from previous Call of Duty games include the traditional "Prestige" leveling system, which allows players who have reached the maximum player level to reset it up to ten times, and the "Theater" mode, enabling players on PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S to rewatch multiplayer matches from the perspective of any player.
In Zombies, one to four players fight endless hordes of the undead, which increase in both number and difficulty with every completed round. Zombies features five playable maps: "Liberty Falls", "Terminus", "Citadelle des Morts", "The Tomb", and "Shattered Veil". Each map includes a main quest that players must solve on their own, along with a number of side quests and easter eggs; a "Directed" mode was included post-launch, allowing players to complete main quests with in-game assistance. The mode features two primary currencies for players to manage: Essence and Salvage; the former is used to purchase doors in order to unlock new parts of the maps and to acquire various player upgrades, including "Perk-a-Cola" cans and upgrades for the player's weapon loadout from the "Pack-a-Punch" machine, while the latter is used to acquire ammo modifications for the player's weapons and build various pieces of lethal and tactical equipment. Players are also able to obtain "GobbleGums"—single-use consumables that grant the player various in-game effects and abilities—and unlock "Augments", a set of minor and major upgrades to perks, field upgrades and ammo mods. Each gameplay item features up to three minor and major Augments, with one of each type being equippable at the same time, allowing players to customize and experiment with different play styles.
In 1991, amidst the start of Operation Desert Storm, CIA operatives Troy Marshall (Y'lan Noel) and William "Case" Calderon, along with handler Jane Harrow (Dawn Olivieri), are deployed to the Iraq–Kuwait border to extract Iraqi minister of defence Saeed Alawi (Jordan Bielsky), but are forced to go off mission when Alawi claims to be targeted by a rogue paramilitary force called "Pantheon". After surviving an encounter with Pantheon forces, the team prepares to extract Alawi, but he is executed by Russell Adler (Bruce Thomas), a rogue agent who fled from the CIA after he was framed as a mole for the Nicaraguan drug lord Raul Menendez. Adler allows himself to be captured, telling Marshall to relay a message to fellow operative Frank Woods (Damon Victor Allen): "Bishop takes Rook". Afterwards, CIA Deputy Director Daniel Livingstone (Lou Diamond Phillips) reprimands the team for Alawi's death, ignores their warnings about Pantheon, and suspends Woods, Marshall, and Case from duty.
Woods reveals to Marshall that Adler's message refers to an abandoned KGB safe house in Bulgaria—code-named "the Rook"—that the two discovered in 1976, and decides to go there with Marshall and Case to investigate Pantheon; Harrow stays behind to cover for their absence. After using Adler's files to recruit ex-Stasi technical genius Felix Neumann (Seamus Dever) and assassin Sevati "Sev" Dumas (Karen David), the team moves to break Adler out of a CIA black site hidden under Washington, D.C., while a political event hosted by Governor Bill Clinton (Jim Meskimen) takes place above ground. The team extracts Adler just as Pantheon assaults the black site, but they are blamed for the attack instead and are declared fugitives. Adler reveals that Pantheon has been engaging in weapons deals with Saddam Hussein; with the help of MI6 agent Helen Park (Lily Cowles) and allied SAS forces, the team assaults one of Hussein's palaces in western Iraq, where they find "the Cradle", a psychochemical weapon that originated from an abandoned CIA biolab in Kentucky.
While Adler stays behind to track down Pantheon's head scientist, Matvey Gusev (Yuri Lowenthal), Case, Marshall, and Sev investigate the biolab. Case accidentally inhales Cradle gas and hallucinates fighting off undead creatures while hearing a woman's voice, which explains that Pantheon was originally a secret CIA division overseeing Cradle's development as a performance-enhancing drug, with Case being the only test subject, before Livingstone shut down the project and disbanded Pantheon. When Case regains his senses, the team discovers that Pantheon has already stolen the biolab's stores of Cradle, and also find a recording revealing that Harrow is working with Pantheon. Using clues in the recording, the team steals financial records from a casino in the European principality of Avalon, which reveal that the casino had been wiring money to Gusev in Iraq. Afterwards, Case and Marshall reunite with Adler in Kuwait and work with his old ally, U.S. Army Captain Lawrence Sims (Reggie Watkins), to capture Gusev, who reveals that the Cradle is being stored in Vorkuta.
The team raids Vorkuta, and while they are unable to stop the Cradle from being moved, they capture Harrow and bring her to the Rook for interrogation. Adler injects Harrow with a truth serum, prompting her to reveal that she joined Pantheon after they leaked information claiming that Adler killed her parents, and that Pantheon is planning to use the Cradle to carry out a false flag attack on the Capitol Building with the goal of discrediting Livingstone and replacing him with Harrow, putting them in control of the CIA. Pantheon forces assault the Rook and rescue Harrow; Case gives chase and boards Harrow's escape helicopter, causing it to crash in the river. Under the influence of released Cradle gas, Case strangles Harrow to death before presumably drowning. Marshall tries to radio Case, explaining that Livingstone managed to evacuate the Capitol. Two weeks later, the team meets with Livingstone, who asks them to continue working as an independent clandestine unit in order to eradicate Pantheon and its true leaders, who are conducting operations in Avalon. Meanwhile, Pantheon operative Jackson Caine (Rick Pasqualone) infiltrates Livingstone's office and accesses his computer.
In December 1991, Marshall and Sev organize a meeting with members of the Rogue Black Ops team to discuss their next move against Pantheon, who has infiltrated the criminal underworld in Avalon. Sev suggests establishing an alliance with a local crime family, the French Syndicate, by helping them take down a rival organization, the Luttazzi Family. Following several successful attacks on the Luttazzi's operations, a bounty is issued on Sev and Marshall. Shortly after, during a celebration, Sev and her associates are attacked by a mysterious assassin code-named "Nocturne"; Sev manages to escape, but Nocturne and his followers give chase.
Days later, Adler contacts Woods from the Rogue team's hideout in Avalon, where the latter reveals that he received a package containing potential intel regarding Pantheon from fellow CIA agent and handler Jason Hudson, some time following his death in December 1989. In the tape, Hudson reveals that Pantheon has been involved in many major CIA operations, including their activities during the Vietnam War and the Soviet–Afghan War, and their assault on a Soviet "numbers station" in the Gulf of Mexico in 1968. Hudson says he has compiled his findings, while he entrusts the tape's recipient to finish his work.
On February 18, 1991, a breach between Earth and the "Dark Aether" dimension occurs, unleashing zombies on the populace of Liberty Falls, a small West Virginian town that acts as a staging ground for "Project Janus": a classified CIA operation headed by Edward Richtofen (Nolan North), the former Director of the CIA task force "Requiem", which contained several Dark Aether outbreaks during the 1980s before Richtofen shut it down and had its senior staff detained. During the outbreak, Richtofen is phased to an unknown location, while his subordinate, Security Chief John Blanchard (Adam Gifford), attempts to reach out to a response team. A group of operators—dubbed "Alpha Team"—answers Blanchard's distress call and follows his instructions to help contain the breach. The group is told to rescue several Project Janus scientists, but they only manage to find Dr. Pericles Panos, who has lost his corporeal form and is trapped within a Dark Aether-corrupted church. Panos instructs Alpha Team to build a device to help clear the Dark Aether phase, but they later realize that it was a ruse, as Panos instead absorbs their energy to regain a physical form and exit the Dark Aether, while Alpha Team remains trapped in his place.
Meanwhile, at Terminus Island, a remote Project Janus research facility located in the Philippine Sea, former KGB scientist Dr. William Peck frees Requiem's senior staff—Special Officer Grigori Weaver (Gene Farber), Doctors Elizabeth Grey and Oskar Strauss, Major Mackenzie Carver (Keston John), and Captain Stoney "Raptor One" Maddox (Derek Phillips)—from their imprisonment at the facility. Working with Filipina smuggler Maya Aguinaldo (Chantelle Barry), who believes that her brother Nathan is imprisoned at Terminus, Peck proposes an alliance with Requiem to eliminate Richtofen. A second breach occurs simultaneously with the one at Liberty Falls, forcing Weaver, Grey, Carver, and Maya to fend off waves of zombies, while Peck and Strauss attempt to pinpoint Richtofen's location from Terminus' command center, with Raptor One securing a helicopter to help with their extraction. The team eventually finds Nathan, who has been mutated following various experiments conducted on him by Dr. Revati Modi (Sohm Kapila), the head of Terminus, and is forced to kill him.
The team establishes communications with the Synaptic Algorithm Module (S.A.M.)—an artificial intelligence system designed by Richtofen based on the personality of Samantha Maxis, a former ally of Requiem who trapped herself in the Dark Aether in 1985 in an effort to contain the previous outbreaks. With S.A.M.'s help, the team locates Modi, who fled from the facility in a submarine during the outbreak, and forces her to return to Terminus. As the team confronts Modi, a gigantic aquatic monster appears, consuming Modi and her submarine before attempting—and failing—to kill Requiem. Afterwards, S.A.M. reveals to the team that Richtofen is obsessed with researching the "Sentinel Artifact", an object of power that controls a primordial substance known as "Prima Materia". Traces of the Sentinel Artifact were found in Avalon, where the French Syndicate has kidnapped demonologist Gabriel Krafft (Darin De Paul), while Requiem's former ally, ex-Spetsnaz captain Sergei Ravenov (Andrew Morgado), is working for them as an enforcer. Believing that the Sentinel Artifact may be key to rescuing Maxis from the Dark Aether, the team sets Avalon as their next destination. Maya, who wishes to avenge Nathan by going after the Syndicate's leader, François "Franco" Moreau, also agrees to join them.
A week after the outbreaks at Liberty Falls and Terminus Island, Requiem travels to a village in Avalon and finds a drunken Ravenov, who still mourns the loss of Maxis. Ravenov reveals to the team that the Syndicate was paid to torture Krafft for information, though he refused to speak. An outbreak occurs, forcing the team to move to find Krafft, while Peck and Ravenov provide them with tactical support. They enter a castle near the village and find Krafft imprisoned within its dungeon. Krafft asks Requiem to find the "Obscurus Altilium", an amulet that can help them locate the Sentinel Artifact. While the team follows Krafft's instructions, Maya wanders off alone to find Franco and kill him. After solving several puzzles and completing rituals, the team recovers a key that summons The Guardian, a giant stone golem that protects the amulet. They manage to defeat the Guardian and recover the amulet, but is unable to save Krafft from being attacked by the zombies. In his dying breath, Krafft tells Requiem to go to an excavation site nearby, and warns them not to let the Sentinel Artifact consume them. He also begs them to not kill Richtofen, who he reveals to be his adopted son.
At the excavation site, the Obscurus Altilium shows Requiem echoes of the past, where British archeologist Sir Archibald Fotherington-Smythe attempted to uncover the Sentinel Artifact in 1908. With Sir Archibald's indirect assistance, the team finds a portal to a Dark Aether Nexus, and discovers the Artifact within it. Following a series of trials, they acquire the Artifact, combine it with the amulet, and exfil from the site. S.A.M. tasks Requiem with traveling to Liberty Falls, where unique elements can be found to properly activate and control the Artifact.
Three days later, Requiem arrives at Colton Hall, an old mansion located in Liberty Falls, where Project Janus set up their operations. They enter S.A.M.'s mainframe chamber and, after performing additional tasks for her, give her the Sentinel Artifact. The team is then teleported to a room where Richtofen is imprisoned. Richtofen confronts Weaver and reveals that he and Maxis were responsible for a failed assassination hit on the former ten years prior, which resulted in the deaths of Richtofen's wife and son, Mary and Samuel. Since then, Richtofen has researched various methods to bring both of them back to life, while Requiem was created to keep Weaver and the others in check. Requiem forms a truce with Richtofen and, using a device in the former's possession, escapes the mansion, though the residual energy from the device causes a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton in the mansion to become zombified. After defeating the "Z-Rex", Richtofen reveals to Requiem that S.A.M. intends to use the Sentinel Artifact to recreate and inhabit Maxis' body, giving her ultimate control over the Dark Aether. The group then heads toward Janus Towers, a twin-tower facility located nearby, where the Aether reactors are approaching meltdown.
Black Ops 6 was co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, with Raven leading production on the game's single-player campaign and Treyarch developing the multiplayer and Zombies modes. The game boasts a four-year development cycle, the longest in Call of Duty history; a game designer at Treyarch has stated that she had been play-testing the title since 2022. Initial details surrounding Black Ops 6 began to surface in November 2023, when Windows Central reported that the game would be set during the Gulf War and feature a story focused on the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Jack Wall, who has scored every Black Ops title since Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012), composed the music for Black Ops 6, with Jim Lordeman, Jimmy Hinson, and Canadian rock duo Romes providing additional music; Wall collaborated with Hinson and Romes on the main theme song for the game's multiplayer, titled "Raining the Fire".
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard and its studios in 2023 marked the end of an exclusivity deal between Sony and Activision, which saw Call of Duty titles receive exclusive content and offers on PlayStation platforms. Though Microsoft had a similar deal with Activision for the Xbox consoles prior to 2015, Microsoft Gaming's CEO Phil Spencer has stated that moving forward, the franchise will have no exclusivity deals, with content parity across all supported platforms.
On May 22, 2024, a website titled "The Truth Lies" went live and was posted on Call of Duty's social media channels. The website featured several real-life video clips of global monuments, such as Mount Rushmore and Brandenburg Gate, being vandalized by a group of people, as well as fictional news reports on the vandalism. The clips featured a three-headed dog logo, which was first seen in Microsoft's announcement for the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase event, which stated that the event would be immediately followed by a "[REDACTED] Direct" presentation that would act as "a special deep dive into the next installment of a beloved franchise".
On May 23, several newspaper outlets, such as USA Today and The New York Post, featured "The Truth Lies" advertisements on their front pages. On the same day, Activision officially announced Black Ops 6 and confirmed that the [REDACTED] Direct would be centered on the game. The airing of the Black Ops 6 Direct presentation on June 9 featured a 25-minute long look at the title, offering insight into the game's storyline, its gameplay mechanics, and the Zombies mode; further details about the multiplayer and Zombies modes, as well as details regarding Black Ops 6's integration into Call of Duty: Warzone, were revealed at the 2024 Call of Duty: Next showcase event on August 28.
Ahead of the Black Ops 6 Direct, Activision released two live-action teaser trailers for the game. The first teaser, titled "Open Your Eyes", was published on Call of Duty's YouTube channel on May 27. It largely consists of footage from news shows and television adverts from the early 1990s, narrated by a distorted male voice, who directly speaks to the viewer, telling them to "stop being sheep and become wolves"; brief glimpses at gameplay footage from the title were also included in the teaser. The second teaser, which featured several real-world political leaders, including former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, former U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell, ex-UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and former Iraq president Saddam Hussein, was published the following day. Additionally, teasers for Black Ops 6 began to appear in Warzone, including a cinematic featuring Black Ops character Frank Woods.
On August 1, Treyarch and Activision revealed a new version of "The Truth Lies" website—named "The Truth Dies"—which featured teasers for the Zombies mode. On August 6, a cinematic trailer for the Zombies map "Terminus" was released, along with details on the Zombies storyline for Black Ops 6 and its cast of characters; a full breakdown of the mode's gameplay systems was published on the Call of Duty blog on August 8. On August 20, Raven Software presented gameplay footage from the campaign at Gamescom 2024. In the following days, Treyarch released a cinematic trailer for the Zombies map "Liberty Falls", and premiered Jack Wall's theme song for Black Ops 6's multiplayer.
Black Ops 6 was released on October 25, 2024, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The title was made available to subscribers of select Xbox Game Pass plans on release day, including Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass for Console. It is also available on select cloud gaming platforms, including GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming. The game requires a continuous internet connection to play all of its modes, including the single-player campaign; Activision has stated that the requirement is to ensure the best possible visual quality via a texture streaming feature. Black Ops 6 was blocked from sale in Kuwait prior to its release, with all preorders in the country being cancelled and refunded. No reason was given by Kuwaiti officials for the ban; publications speculated it was due to the game's Gulf War setting.
Those who pre-ordered Black Ops 6 or had an active subscription to Xbox Game Pass received early access to an open beta test for the game's multiplayer component. The early access period took place from August 30 to September 4, while a second period, available to all players, began on September 6 and concluded on September 9. Critic impressions of Black Ops 6's beta were mostly positive; critics highlighted the omnidirectional movement system as a standout feature, but had mixed responses towards the game's map design and gunplay.
Following the game's release, Treyarch has been supporting Black Ops 6 with free seasonal updates, which add new content to the multiplayer and Zombies modes, including new maps, weapons, playable characters, and game modes. Each "season" also features a premium battle pass and a series of cosmetic items, which can be purchased by players through an in-game store. Six total seasons are planned for the game; the first season was released on November 14, 2024; the second season was released on January 28, 2025; the third season was released on April 2. Some seasonal updates also include crossover content with several media franchises in the form of playable characters for the multiplayer and Zombies modes, including numerous characters from Netflix's Squid Game TV series, such as the Front Man, the Pink Guards, the VIPs, and Young-hee; the T-800, based on its appearance in The Terminator (1984); characters from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, such as Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Splinter; and the View Askewniverse characters Jay and Silent Bob.
Black Ops 6 received "generally favorable reviews" from critics, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic, which calculated a weighted average rating of 83/100 across all platforms, based on 64 reviews for the PlayStation 5 version, 40 reviews for the Windows version, and 25 reviews for the Xbox Series X/S version. OpenCritic determined that 93% of critics recommended the game.
Reviewers had a generally positive response towards the game's single-player campaign. IGN's Simon Cardy gave the campaign a 9/10 rating, writing that it was a "hugely welcome reinvigoration" of the series. GameSpot's Phil Hornshaw praised the campaign's mission design and its cast of characters, but found himself to be "lost" during some parts of the campaign's narrative. Luke Kemp of GamesRadar+ also praised the game's mission design and commended the inclusion of supernatural elements in some of its missions. The Guardian's Keith Stuart stated that the campaign's missions provided "short, sharp genre exercises that each bring different flavours to the central gameplay conceit of killing as many soldiers as possible."
The multiplayer component received praise from critics. IGN's Seth G. Macy gave the multiplayer a 8/10 rating, commending the game's selection of maps, its gunplay, and the omnidirectional movement system, but noting that the latter did not "necessarily help [him] competitively except in very specific situations." Hornshaw also praised the omnidirectional movement, stating that it creates "a really high degree of fluidity", but offered criticism towards the multiplayer's respawn system, which he felt was negatively affected by the "cramped" design of the game's maps. VG247's Fran Ruiz wrote that Black Ops 6's multiplayer was "an absolute blast to play", and that it was the "most tight and polished the series has felt in more than a decade." Both Kemp and Digital Trends's Billy Givens liked the game's perk system, with the latter writing that he appreciated the need to "consider the risk and rewards of choosing or abandoning perks [he'd] typically rolled with in previous games."
The Zombies mode was also met with positive reviews; critics liked the mode's return to its round-based gameplay format, as opposed to the mode's open world design in the previous Call of Duty title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (2023). IGN's Will Borger gave Zombies an 8/10 rating, stating that the mode is "absurd and campy and amazing and goofy in all the right ways"; he praised the mode's launch maps, "Terminus" and "Liberty Falls", and its hidden quests and easter eggs, but disliked the "deeply annoying" dialogue for its characters. GamesRadar+ features editor Andrew Brown also praised the launch maps, and stated that Black Ops 6's version of Zombies revitalized his love for the mode as a whole. Stuart wrote that Zombies was "fraught and incredibly stressful" but said that it was "a real blast" with friends. Ruiz felt that Zombies "greatly benefited" from the omnidirectional movement system.
Black Ops 6 achieved the largest launch weekend in the franchise's history, and was the best-selling video game in the United States in 2024. Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella noted high player engagement on release day and an increase in new Game Pass subscriptions within a single day. Sales on PlayStation and Steam increased by 60% compared to Modern Warfare III.