PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox; Treyarch/Raven/Activision If you think you know what to expect from a Call of Duty game, well … you’re probably right, but Black Ops 6 does its thing with panache Whoever thought of constructing this game’s campaign around a safe house resembling a haunted mansion on an abandoned country estate deserves an immediate pay rise. After each foray into shoot-’em-up carnage, your team of militarised misfits is deposited back into this sprawling country pile, which for some reason is filled with intriguing mysteries and puzzles: what happens if you play the piano? Where does that passage lead? What is this, scrawled in invisible ink on the wall? It’s like Scooby-Doo crossed with Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca – a comparison I never imagined making about a Call of Duty game. Lead developers Treyarch and Raven have had four years to work on this title and boy does it show. The multiplayer mode is both familiar and fresh thanks to its “omni-movement”, which lets you run and leap in every direction, radically altering the feel of movement and tipping the balance of lethal encounters in favour of people with spatial reasoning skills rather than lightning-fast trigger fingers. The small maps, taking in derelict radar stations, strip mall forecourts and penthouse apartments, have been intricately built to provide combinations of labyrinthine corridors, long sight-lines and sneaky cubby holes. The weapons, including 12 newcomers, are designed to exploit varying playstyles from quick-scope super snipers to Red Bull-guzzling SMG teens – and the gunsmith allows myriad ways to modify each one, with genuine tangible effects on your play. Continue reading...

This seemingly minor addition allows players to sprint and dive in every direction so crunch moments can feel like a ridiculously fun John Woo shootout Here is a statement of fact that I am not entirely proud of: I have played every Call of Duty game since the series launched in 2003. I’ve been there through the extremely good times (Call of Duty 4) and the extremely not good (Call of Duty: Roads to Victory). And while I may have cringed at some of the narrative decisions, the casual bigotry rife on the online multiplayer servers, and the general “America, fuck yeah!” mentality of the entire series, I have always come back. In that time, I’ve seen all the many attempts to tweak the core feel of the games – from perks to jetpacks (thanks Advanced Warfare!) – but having spent a weekend in the multiplayer beta test for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, I think developer Treyarch may have stumbled on the best so far. It is called omni-movement. Continue reading...