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Black Ops 6 – Hands-on – PlayStation.Blog

Activision recently dropped a wealth of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 intel, including hands-on with Multiplayer, round-based Zombies, and Warzone. I got my hands-on with six new Multiplayer maps, the undead-infested Liberty Falls, and a Nuketown-inspired Resurgence map. Each Black Ops 6 mode also touts Treyarch’s new Omnimovement mechanic, which brings a silky fluidity to the series’ trademark gunplay.

Black Ops 6 releases on October 25 for PS5 and PS4, but if you want to get a head start on the action, read on for all the details on the upcoming beta starting on August 30.

Now let’s look at the practical details.

Multiple players

Omnimovement – Black Ops 6’s new marque mechanics are bursting with potential. You can now sprint and hold the circle button to dive in any direction while maintaining 360-degree aiming control. By the time I’d wrapped my head around the possibilities, I was diving off flights of stairs and doing 180s in the air to take out pursuers. Another favorite technique is to dive into a room occupied by enemies and gun them down before they can react. Better yet, Omnimovement has made its global debut in MP, Zombies, and Warzone.

Global arms shipments and progress – Two massive quality-of-life improvements for Black Ops 6 make managing your arsenal more seamless. Global weapon progression means you’ll have access to all the weapons and attachments you earn across Multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone. Additionally, any loadout or Gunsmith edits you make in one mode are globally mirrored across the other modes.

Kill Order Mode – This new mode sees both teams protect their own High-Value Target while hunting down the enemy’s HVT. Treyarch has struck a slick balance between chaotic TDM-style action and a light layer of strategic, objective-based play. It’s definitely making it into my regular rotation.

Body shields – Got the enemy? A new body shield mechanic lets players grab an unconscious enemy for some extra protection. For a devilish twist, Treyarch has activated proximity chat between teams to exchange words. Mind your sportsmanship!
Best Play – Celebrate your team’s winning performance or witness their demise with the return of Best Play cameras, marking the end of the match with a third-person camera effect.

Shoot doors to open them – A convenient hands-free function.

Treyarch’s MP design philosophy – Black Ops 6 marks a return to the studio’s MP bread and butter: small, fast-paced, three-lane maps. The move away from large, sprawling maps means a fight is always just around the corner. Get ready for 16 brand new maps at launch.

New Multiplayer Maps – During the hands-on event, I battled on six of the upcoming Core 6v6 maps.

  • Shoot – A massive, crashed radar dish acts as a map reference point. Deep, winding trenches, underground passages, and explosive red barrels are scattered across the map for plenty of unpredictable action.
  • To wind back – Gunfight down an American city street, with the map’s namesake being a 90s video store in a shopping mall. Close-quarters battles break out amid stacks of VHS tapes, with a fast food restaurant across the street providing more intense encounters.
  • Horizon – A posh apartment atop a skyscraper in the city. A narrow corridor on the top floor became a focal point of conflict, where many a long-range firefight broke out, complete with a pool below to dive into when things get heated. Beware of the dangerous elevator shafts at the bottom of the map.
  • Babylon – These crumbling, sandy ruins are a paradise for anyone who craves intimate, tight-quarters combat. Bring an SMG or shotgun to clear corners.
  • To leave – Abandoned train cars fill a ruined railroad yard, creating jagged paths across the map with unique sightlines that will keep your wits about you.

Round zombies

Round-based returns – Treyarch returns to the roots of Zombies mode with players surviving waves of increasingly powerful monsters, steadily progressing through the map and powering up weapons to survive. The two launch maps include the claustrophobic Terminus and the colorful new Liberty Falls…

Map of Liberty Falls – This launch map is a slice of necrotic Americana. Blast through waves of the undead as you explore the town’s vehicle-filled streets, bowling alley lanes, motel, comic book store, alien church, and more. Ziplines connect the town’s rooftop destinations, creating a layer of twisting paths to learn.

Purchase shared door – Players can now raise money to open doors and progress through Zombies maps, meaning you’ll get more money to upgrade your gear.

Exfil or die – Risk and reward rule in round-based Zombies. Exfil offers a chance to end your run on a high note, or you can go down fighting in new dramatic game over endings that dynamically change depending on where and how you die. I botched my exfil, failing to take out the zombies swarming the landing zone in time. My resulting game over involved an armored zombie grabbing my escaping helicopter and smashing it to smithereens.

Melee Macchiato Advantage – This new potion allows you to send zombies flying across the map with a single press of the R3 button.

Wonder weapons – Destroy the dead with the Ray Gun, Beamsmasher, and the devastating Thrustodyne Model 23. The latter is a massive, repurposed jet engine that sucks in zombie packages and tears them to pieces.

Targeted mode – Need a guide through the zombie hordes? Treyarch is releasing a new Directed Mode post-launch with Season 1, which will help players navigate the Main Quest through wave 15.

War zone

Area 99 – The launch of Black Ops 6 brings with it a new Resurgence map. Area 99 is the birthplace of the iconic Black Ops map, Nuketown. An abandoned facility with a retro 60s decay and decay vibe makes for a fresh addition to Warzone.

New Points of Interest – Area 99 has 10 tempting places to land. Here are a few I’ve battled through:

  • Pod dormitory – These retro-futuristic multi-colored dorms are made of split-off pod-like capsule apartments. A great place to land and potentially grab some loot, privacy, and a vantage point.
  • Home factory – A destination filled with half-built prefab homes, resulting in some interesting and unexpected sightlines. This point of interest even includes a small replica of the iconic Nuketown map. Cute!
  • nuclear reactor – Trust me – don’t do jump into the glowing green irradiated coolant.
  • Mannequin mounting – Piles of damaged dummies are scattered throughout this complex, presumably destined for a weapons testing site somewhere. Watch out for the hydraulic press above the conveyor belt, which is still active…
  • Other points of interest – Look forward to also looting the Nuketown Shipping, Test Site, Bunker, Loading Bay, Cooling Towers, and Warehouse.

The weapon inspection animations are undeniably cool.

Treyarch and the rest of the COD developers have something special in store for Black Ops fans here, and Omnimovement is a gameplay innovation that brings an extra dose of freshness to the legendary franchise.

But don’t just take my word for it. If you pre-ordered Black Ops 6, you can jump into the early access beta starting tomorrow, August 30th. The full game will be released on October 25th.