Black Ops 6 Campaign Review (Xbox) - Supernatural Surprises Elevate This Year's Call Of Duty

Call of Duty is back, this time with another Black Ops entry for the first time since 2020's Black Ops Cold War. Just like that four-year old COD title, Black Ops 6's campaign has been put together by Raven Software - but this time around you can really feel the extra development time. Four years in the making and featuring an actual, genuine surprise for a Call of Duty campaign, this year's release shouldn't be missed - especially now that it's launching on Xbox Game Pass.

Having said that, you won't be feeling particularly surprised when Black Ops 6 first blasts its way onto your screen. After a short introduction, you're quickly thrown into the deserts of Kuwait to take out loads of bad guys with very little context. The first 10,15 minutes of Black Ops 6 are very 'Call of Duty', but let this one slowly work its magic, and you're in for a spy thriller-meets-supernatural shooter by the time its 8-10 hour story concludes.

And just like that, the game's second mission throws you into a big old stealth level - with a final target to takedown; à la Hitman or something. Okay, look, it's certainly not as sophisticated as IO Interactive's steely bald dude simulator, but Black Ops 6 is confident with its stealth levels - there are a few of them sprinkled into the full adventure. You're trusted to actually take your time a little bit here, and you probably want to do just that, because getting caught in these scenarios can be brutal.

In fact, Raven's campaign this year does feel tougher than your average Call of Duty game, which is just something to keep in mind. It's not super difficult, and the game does enough hand holding to get you by, but if you're a bit rusty with your Call of Duty shooty shooty, you might notice yourself succumbing to quite a few digital deaths by journey's end. This is particularly felt when the game gets a little bit supernatural, but more on that later.

Before we can get there, Black Ops 6 has another big old brown desert to throw at you in the form of a sprawling Iraq level, and this is definitely the weakest bit of this year's Call of Duty campaign. It's reminiscent of last year's 'open fire' missions from Modern Warfare 3, but where those fitted okay into a looser Call of Duty story, this one doesn't here in Black Ops 6. This year's story is a lot tighter and more cinematic, and for us, the Iraq level — with its vast map stuffed full of optional objectives — just didn't feel quite right. It also featured lots of weird geometry you could get stuck on — either in your vehicle or on-foot — meaning it felt somewhat unfinished sat in the middle of an otherwise super polished story mode.

Speaking of things that are super polished, it goes without saying that the gunplay here is fantastic. Pairing typical Black Ops weaponry with Infinity Ward's newer branch of the COD engine is a lovely marriage - and whatever weapon you're using, Black Ops 6 feels tight and snappy to play. We particularly enjoyed sniping here, where the game applies a little bit of slo-mo whenever you steady your scope to take out bad dudes. You gets lots of cool gadgets and equipment to play with too, all accessed by a big old weapon wheel, and yeah, you rarely feel short changed when it comes to combat options in Black Ops 6.

In terms of the overall storyline, BO6 is engaging, and it certainly kept us intrigued throughout. However, we can't say that some of the character interactions and little nods to past experiences didn't go over our heads a little bit. We've played every single COD campaign available on Xbox, and it all feels a little hard to keep track of in 2024. From what we can remember, there are strong links to Black Ops Cold War in this one, so it might be worth playing 2020's Call of Duty as well for a bit more context. That isn't essential of course, but you might get a stronger grasp on the BO6 story if you've more recently played the previous Black Ops title.

We don't really want to spoil story elements much beyond that, but we have to mention one particular section of Black Ops 6. Around the halfway mark or so, Raven gets all weird and supernatural with a hallucinogenic portion of the game, and we genuinely haven't been this surprised by a Call of Duty game since at least 'the numbers, Mason' in the original Black Ops. Again, that's as far as we'll go because we'd like to keep the surprise largely under wraps, but just know that if you like your COD campaigns to get weird, Black Ops 6 is for you.

Tech wise, this is a very solid affair, again built off Infinity Ward's newer Call of Duty engine. We had the 120Hz mode enabled because we use it in multiplayer, and while this certainly isn't rock solid here in the more demanding campaign mode, VRR was there to smooth over any dips. If you want a more solid campaign experience, it's probably worth making sure you're running at 60Hz instead. Aside from the weird geometry issues in that Iraq level, we only really encountered one other major bug too, where a character disappeared during a conversation at our interstitial hideout. It wasn't part of a major mission or anything so it was more amusing than anything else, but yeah, it's just something we thought to mention.

Conclusion

Overall then, Black Ops 6 features a really good campaign mode that's certainly worth the download on Xbox Game Pass. The story has a lengthy runtime — roughly eight hours at least — and is crammed full of interesting, varied missions - including one huge surprise that left us with a cheeky grin as we played through it. This is a big step up from the other COD campaign currently available on Game Pass in MW3, and fans of big, bombastic AAA experiences should have a right old blast with the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign.

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