There is only so much you can do with the first-person shooter genre before it all boils down to just shooting at targets. With decades of experience under its belt, it’s easy – or perhaps, expected – to assume that the Call of Duty series has reached the end of its bag of tricks. Black Ops 6 can prove this assumption wrong, though. But it’s not so much a reinvention as it is a loving tribute to the greatest hits of the genre.

A campaign to (shoot, sneak, survive, and) die for

As someone who’s played the original campaigns of the very first Call of Duty games, the franchise relies on a few strategies to set each game apart from one another. They can tell a compelling story, design intricate maps, or – as is common in today’s game – showcase what players can do in multiplayer mode.

Black Ops 6, on the other hand, takes a more experimental approach, rather than going for the traditional run-and-gun levels. After a brief prologue of the latter, the campaign opens up to a cornucopia of variety. One level has players stealthily infiltrate a political event hosted by Bill Clinton. The next chapter then takes players to the front door of Saddam Hussein’s palace in a Halo-like open-world map. Each level is fundamentally different from the rest. But, if you miss the old run-and-guns, every level usually ends in a straight-up gunfight.

This is definitely a bold approach for a very traditional series. The campaign effectively borrows its ideas from the best of the genre: the aforementioned Halo, Bioshock, and Dishonored, for example. Amid its boldness, it’s also refreshing after years trudging through similar-looking shooting levels.

What makes Black Ops 6 a Call of Duty game?

Though Black Ops 6’s campaign is easily the most fun I’ve had in a Call of Duty campaign, it’s a bit difficult to sniff out its essence as a Call of Duty game. A lot of times, I kept forgetting that I was playing one.

It’s not a knock on Black Ops 6, to be fair. Rather, it’s a comment on the entire series. The game could have been tighter if it had a stronger fiber that bridges levels together into one cohesive unit.

Now, the campaign does have a few ways of doing this. The story, for one, has the makings of a traditional political thriller, as is expected from the Black Ops series. Another way is the safe house in between missions, a hub world stylized as “The Rook”. This is where the game can do a bit more.

The Rook is a safe house where the main crew rests in between missions. It’s where you, the playable character named Case, can learn more about your teammates. Additionally, it also offers upgrades you can take for missions, purchasable through collectible currency, which is difficult to obtain through the campaign.

While these are all what you would expect from a hub world, it doesn’t feel valuable in the overall game. Each upgrade, offered by improving the safehouse, offers only marginal benefits like reducing recoil by a small percentage. All of them are just tiny adjustments that can make the campaign a tad bit better but are ultimately unnecessary. Plus, since the game goes through different genres, an upgrade tree that focuses mainly on shooting doesn’t seem as useful.

Where do zombies go?

Leaving the campaign aside, it’s time to look at another Black Ops classic, the Zombies mode. Much like its previous iteration, Black Ops 6’s Zombies is an arcade mode that has players fight through never-ending hordes of ghouls.

As I’ve played over the years, the Zombies mode is always an enjoyable time, especially with friends. Black Ops 6 is no different. The game currently has two different maps: Terminus and Liberty Falls. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t really need to. The formula is still tried-and-tested for a coop experience.

It’s still a difficult journey for solo players, though. If you’re playing the mode without much experience of the maps, finding where to go is almost impossible. A guide was practically a necessity when I tried the new maps alone for the first time.

A multiplayer so fast, your head spins

As I mentioned, I played through the original Call of Duty a lifetime ago, which automatically puts me in an age group whose reflexes trail behind today’s younger players. Climbing through the leaderboard is more difficult. That said, Black Ops 6’s multiplayer mode retains the same trait that makes it popular year after year: being easy to pick up.

A multiplayer match rarely needs an introduction. Just click “Multiplayer” and fly immediately into a lobby. On-screen prompts and a voiceover tell you what to do, but the flow is simple enough to follow even without instructions.

Yes, I died a lot more often than I got a kill, but there was never any frustration of losing. The fun was always present, whether it’s watching others get amazing kills or getting the occasional one yourself.

Also, though I’ve waxed poetic about this before, it bears repeating that the new omnidirectional movement plays so fluidly on Black Ops 6’s system. The new maps are also fun to discover as they add more verticality in king-of-the-mountain-style layouts. Finally, the current map rotation includes an almost-identical recreation of Nuketown, the classic map from the original Black Ops.

Is this your GaMeMatch?

The Black Ops series is a bright spot for the entire Call of Duty franchise. The original featured the franchise’s most memorable story and other game modes to keep you playing for some time. Now, more than a decade later, Black Ops 6 regains the series its reputation as the most ambitious title to date. The game’s singleplayer experiments combines seamlessly with tried-and-tested multiplayer and zombie modes, making it worth playing for the whole year.