At Gamescom Opening Night Live, Raven Software showed off an extended look at gameplay from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which the studio is co-developing with Treyarch. The presentation focused on a level called Most Wanted, which tasked the player with infiltrating a political fundraiser to target a senator, then use a scan of his eyes to gain access to a black site under Washington D.C. Getting the retinal scan meant getting a camera close enough to the senator's face that you could then, a little later, stick the camera’s lens up to a scanner which would then somehow read the eyes (the trailer absolutely does not explain how this works).

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Is Drawing On Dishonored's Approach To Level Design
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Call of Duty must never let the octane fall any lower than high, so the level eventually escalates into its heroes fighting a massively armored goon with a minigun, falling through an exploding elevator shaft, and escaping the site on motorcycles as they shoot dudes in black SUVs. But that’s typical CoD. I’m much more interested in the beginning of the level, which plays more like Dishonored than Dead Reckoning, as you engage in social stealth, walking around the party, quietly knocking the politician's guards out, and casually attempting to snap the winning pic.

This isn’t the first time Call of Duty has momentarily morphed into an Arkane game. 2017's Call of Duty: WW2 had a mission called Liberation that tasked you with going undercover in a Nazi base, and required you to memorize facts about your invented backstory so you would have believable answers if stopped and questioned. Once inside, you needed to gather intel without giving yourself away to the enemy. I enjoyed that level a lot — I also generally think WW2 is one of the best campaigns in the series — but I always enjoy it when CoD takes a break from its usual run-and-gun action to try something different. The series’ most iconic levels (All Ghillied Up, Death From Above, No Russian) are often iconic because they break from the formula. It's difficult for a mission to stand out if you've played countless missions just like it in a bunch of other Call of Duty games.

It's Always Fun When Call Of Duty Gets Experimental
Leaving the well-traveled path can be dangerous, though. When a game with a formula as rigid as CoD's diverges from the tried and tested, it reminds players how much more interesting it could be. I play most CoD campaigns, and tend to enjoy them. They're short, rarely topping seven hours, they get you in and out before you have time to get too bored, and they treat you to some explosions and helicopter rides along the way. They're the most played single-player games in the world, and keeping that wide audience happy can mean making a lot of concessions. These are games that your friend who plays one game a year can pick up and finish without issue, and that tends to result in rollercoaster levels that do provide thrills but are, above all, committed to keeping you on the tracks by giving you what you expect to get.

Most Wanted is a reminder that CoD can do other things, too. But it’s also true that when the series has experimented too much in the past, as with the futuristic sci-fi and open-ended structure of Infinite Warfare, the fans tended to be unhappy. After that game, Activision pivoted back to playing the hits: World War 2, Modern Warfare, and Black Ops. Since Infinite Warfare in 2016, there have been two World War 2 games, three Modern Warfare games, and three Black Ops games. That's all the mainline games.

I'm encouraged by Most Wanted for that reason. If CoD is going to stick to those three sub-series, I'm glad to see it experimenting with genre. It’s similar to how when every big-budget movie is a franchise movie, you root for the ones that are genuinely creative. I'm rooting for the teams that make CoD to find cool ways to innovate within an increasingly rigid brand identity.

Posted: Aug 28, 2024 12:30 pm
Related Forum: Gaming Discussion

Source: https://www.thegamer.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-6-bringing-back-dishonored-levels/