Another year, another Call of Duty. What makes this one special is that it’s a Black Ops title. Treyarch has always stood above the rest when it comes to handling the annual FPS franchise. The way they handle balancing, gameplay systems, map design, and player experience has always been different, in a mostly good way. At the end of the day, it’s a Call of Duty multiplayer experience. You know what you’re getting into. However, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 introduces a new movement system that is an absolute game-changer. Here is our Black Ops 6 multiplayer review.
Despite having an extremely questionable campaign and zombies offering, last year’s Modern Warfare III had a very solid multiplayer with some of the best post-launch support a Call of Duty has ever had. It had great maps, a solid pool of guns, and brought back so many features that previous titles have stubbornly kept out for unknown reasons. Black Ops 6 continues to follow through the established core gameplay experience in terms of loadouts, perks, and the excellent engine that was first introduced in 2019’s Modern Warfare remake.
What Black Ops 6 does to properly cement itself as an excellent new entry are 2 very simple but highly impactful things: the return of the Prestige progression system and omnimovement.
Climbing up the ranks
The Call of Duty multiplayer formula has already been tried and tested. We’ve reached a point in it wherein it’s less about innovation and more about how the studios have doubled down on what has already worked.
One of the more baffling design choices that all of the COD developers have made over the years is the removal of the beloved Prestige system in favor of just normally reaching up to level 1000. It made progression too mundane and flat over the years. No special title, loot, icon, or level to gun for.
Black Ops 6 brings back the Prestige system in glorious form. Not only does it provide special cool new rewards for each new prestige leading up to master status, but it also gives so much more meaning with the way a player decides to go about their loadouts. Hitting level 55 will then prompt you if you want to enter Prestige and restart your leveling for some cool loot. This will then reset your acquired gear, but you will be given limited amounts of permanent unlock tokens. Then the grind to the next prestige is up again.
Prestige makes progression feel so much more involved. I now have to think about which perks I want to keep as I begin from scratch again. Or perhaps I want a particular gun already unlocked while I climb the next set of levels. Don’t worry, not everything is getting wiped. The likes of camo challenges and weapon levels will still retain whatever you have accomplished with them.
You can already see its effect on the players as well. Since the game’s launch, there have been a number of races to master prestige. Similar to how there’s a World’s First event for every new raid released in Destiny 2. It gives the community something to collectively go for.
Prestige should have never left Call of Duty and I’m so glad that Treyarch has brought it back here in Black Ops 6. And I believe it is its most rewarding version yet. There’s always something cool to look forward to when reaching a particular Prestige level. And the more I think about what else is coming in future seasonal updates, the more excited I get. This should help in keeping the game relevant for the rest of 2025.
I like to move it, move it
Omnimovement is the biggest talk of the town leading up to the release of Black Ops 6. The world already had a taste of what it would be like during the Beta but now that it’s in everyone’s hands, things are getting a little crazy. Both good and bad.
The industry trend for PvP FPS games nowadays favor a more twitchy and fast-paced playstyles which places less of a complete reliance on aiming and more on positioning and out maneuvering your opponent. You can thank the likes of Apex Legends for this. It’s flashy, cool to look at, and extremely satisfying to pull off. It also creates an ever-bigger skill gap that not every player has the time or energy to pull off. Some of the movement kids online are truly built different.
Black Ops 6’s omnimovement system allows you to sprint, dolphin dive, and slide in any direction. It unlocks the full 360 degrees for you to use similar to how Max Payne 3 did it. 2019’s Modern Warfare completely opened the flood gates for COD in terms of what can be done with an expanded movement system. Five years later, Treyarch takes it even further. Admittedly, I’m having a ton of fun with it.
I am by no means an expert but sliding through a corner or hitting a dive and turning around while in the air and gunning down a person who was shooting me from behind will never get old. And there are also many times where someone else will do it to me. It makes public matches extremely sweaty which is a double-edged sword. If you want to just have a fun and chill time after work and hop on a few games, the controversial skill-based matchmaking might ruin all that for you. And it feels extremely strong with this title. But if you’re itching to test your mastery of the mechanics against others, you’ll find no better competition here, especially during the wee hours of the night when everyone is on demon mode.
What I noticed is how even my other friends, who have sworn of COD for the past few years due to a lack of interest, are all slowly coming back because of how fresh Black Ops 6 feels with the omnimovement system. This is a time that feels similar to when Sledgehammer Games introduced jetpacks in Advanced Warfare. It was something completely different and shook things up while still retaining the core gameplay of a Call of Duty.
What ultimately pulls the experience down a bit is the weaker map roster. This was a bit disappointing given how I generally consider Treyarch to be the best COD map designers but a lot of what is available now are too small, cramped, or flows awkwardly. In a game where every player can move like Neo and John Wick, it’s a bit problematic when it’s all within small maps that barely follow the 3-lane formula that COD has always been known for. It can become too chaotic and frantic at times. And I shudder to think what are the implications on the competitive scene, especially when Ranked mode comes out in Season 1.
Black Ops 6 has 33 guns with 12 that are never-before-seen in the franchise. While it may sound exciting, they still feel the same as any other guns we’ve used before. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It means that Treyarch has still kept intact the series-staple gunplay that is about as close to perfection at this point. They all feel great to use and are an absolute blast to level up and try to go for camos. I salute anyone who’s trying to do launcher camo challenges. It’s rough out there folks.
Treyarch has also made it a point that attachments don’t have as much drawbacks as they had before. It was annoying to want to put on a barrel that says it’ll improve recoil but then it’ll also significantly affect damage range. Or a stock that will increase your movement speed but will make your gun shoot anywhere but where you’re aiming at. This obsession with providing 1 pro and 2 cons brought little to no experimentation and gameplay expression. There’s always this one meta build that everyone should use or else. Black Ops 6 goes away with a lot of that and so, the attachment system provides players more viable choices without much consequences.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Multiplayer Review Final Verdict – 8.5/10
Treyarch took a massive risk with omnimovement in Black Ops 6 and it paid off in full force. Call of Duty multiplayer has never felt this fun and fresh in a long time.
As far as I could tell, both performance and online connection has been significantly improved since the Beta days. The only constant thing you have to deal with is the extremely problematic, confusing, and convoluted UI known to gaming. But other than that, this is easily a great pickup for anyone who enjoys online multiplayer experiences. It’s a Call of Duty game. You probably already have it even before reading this Black Ops 6 multiplayer review.
Don’t forget to check out the campaign as well! Not only is it a fantastic experience, but you can also gain some cool new multiplayer loot by progressing through the missions.
I’ll see you all sliding out there in the field. Call of Duty is back, baby.
This review was made using a game code for the PC provided by the publisher.