Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Review

Omnimovement is the headline and it earns the name. You can sprint, dive and slide in any direction, backward included, and the animation system keeps it readable rather than turning every fight into a scramble. It sounds like a gimmick and instead changes how you approach every angle in the game, which is the highest compliment a movement system can earn. The campaign is set around the Gulf War and a rogue faction inside the agency, and it is structured with real variety: a casino heist, an infiltration of a black-tie gala with a genuine stealth fail state, a safehouse hub you return to and upgrade between missions, and a late sequence that does something deeply strange with an estate you thought you understood.

Multiplayer launched with a large map set and the round-based zombies mode returned properly. It arrived on a subscription service on day one, which changed the commercial conversation around the series more than anything inside the game. It is not reinventing the form, but it is the most confident and best assembled entry in years.