The launch ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6has been a real breath of fresh air for the longstanding franchise, with the game drawing huge player counts in its first week of release. This positivity could not have come at a better time forCall of Dutyin the backdrop of the controversies of its previous titles, but there are still some elements of the series' new identity that come with a lot of serious drawbacks.
For example,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6adheres to the wider franchise’s new form of content delivery, being accessed through theCall of Dutycentral hub that now acts as the main conduit for the IP’s annual releases. This alone has its downsides, but it plays further into the increasingly “always online” nature of theCall of Dutyfranchise, with a constant internet connection to theCoDservers now being required at all times. While this is to be expected for multiplayer, players are already facing serious problems with the campaign and Zombies experiences ofBlack Ops 6, with the fresh title showcasing just how detrimental an always online approach can be for a game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Always Online Approach is a Stain on its Shining Launch
Call of Dutyfully moved over to an always online approachstarting with 2019’sModern Warfare, with this title marking a serious shift in the core identity of the franchise. Whereas the vast majority of past entries supported offline play across its modes with single-player capabilities, a new standard was set where a constant internet connection was a requirement as opposed to an encouragement.
While consoles initially maintained the ability to playCall of Dutycampaigns offline, this has changed over time, with modernCoDtitles such asBlack Ops 6being always online across all platforms and game modes. This is largely down to currentCoDtitles being linked toCall of DutyHQ, a single hub for all the franchise’s content that supports a variety of currentCoDtitles as well asWarzoneat the same time.
Always Online Has Some Big Implications For the Campaign and Zombies of Black Ops 6
An immediate downside to this approach withinBlack Ops 6, other than requiring an internet connection to begin with, means that quick-resuming a campaign mission in between sessions is a thing of the past, as moving between titles on modern console hardware now disconnects players from theCoDservers and boots them out of their single-player experience. The downsides of the always-online philosophy areeven more apparent inBlack Ops 6’s Zombies, minimizing a lot of the otherwise positive changes that Treyarch introduced to the mode.
For example, fans were excited to hear thatsolo Zombies inBlack Ops 6now features a save and quit feature, allowing fans to pick up where they left off at higher rounds and eliminating a big downside that previously existed in the essentially endless survival of the iconic mode. However, with always online, there is a massive risk that a player will be booted back to the main menu if their internet connection even momentarily blinks, muting a lot of the excitement that would otherwise exist around the game’s new save and quit mechanics.
Solo play in Zombies is further dampened by the fifteen-minute time limit that players now have to pause their game, with this most likely being a measure that has been taken to prioritize server space for fans who are actively playing the game.While a lot of positivity still exists aroundBlack Ops 6despite all of this, it is clear that the constant requirement of an internet connection forCall of Dutyis encroaching quite significantly and unnecessarily on single-player experiences.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
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Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.
