The shooter is turning its agent setting into a colorful clown show. GlobalESportNews columnist Kevin really hates that.
I already mentioned the premonition in our review of Black Ops 6: the absolutely inappropriate sci-fi and horror skins for pre-orders are an omen of what is yet to come in the in-game store.
Now the developers have revealed Season 1, and it’s even worse than I had imagined. Instead of Black Ops agents in civilian clothes or grim military dudes (and dudettes), Black Ops 6 is pushing the nonsense pedal to the metal.
In the dark and gloomy 90s setting, filled with locations from the Iraq war, fighters in golden steampunk outfits, monsters like those from Dead Space, brightly glowing neon warriors and even dragons are thrown around seemingly at random.
Yes, dragons! With wings and horns and everything. Just with an assault rifle. And the assault rifle is also a dragon. No, I’m not making this up:
Throw caution to the wind
Sure, as a long-time CoD player, none of this is completely new to me. But in recent years, the wacky actions and crossovers were usually added towards the end of a Call of Duty’s lifespan – along the lines of “Come on, let’s get a little wild before the next installment comes out in a month or two.”
In the first seasons, however, Activision at least tried to maintain some semblance of logic in the game’s scenario: in 2019, Modern Warfare delivered new characters in a SpecOps or terrorist look, and CoD Vanguard got operators in a WW2 look – albeit with a lot of artistic license.
But now any inhibitions seem to have been thrown overboard: As shrill, colorful and wacky as possible seems to be the new motto.
Whether this makes a mockery of the tone and style of the entire game is apparently no longer important. MW3 already replaced thematically coherent colored seasons with bizarre and soulless crossovers.
More sales, less atmosphere
The sad result: Black Ops 6 already looks like a completely random bunch of set pieces, ignores its actually atmospherically constructed setting and sacrifices atmosphere on the altar of greed for money.
Microtransactions are apparently much more important than… a look with a tangible identity – not to mention the original design vision of Black Ops 6. So it would be only logical in the future if CoD no longer builds a concrete (historical) scenario at all.
All or nothing
Why create immersion when you’re just going to tear it down with absolutely grotesque skins? Why advertise authentic-looking commandos on the packaging when everyone ends up running around as a dragon with a dragon assault rifle?
It would be much more consistent to go the Fortnite route and create a fantasy arena where anything is possible and the Terminator fights with Captain America.
But please, Activision: Don’t sell me any more supposedly grounded SpecOps backdrops in the future. I’ve been feeling taken for a ride for a long time.
