Black Ops 6 is Set to Be the Most Varied Call of Duty Campaign Ever

ign.com:

Call of Duty’s greatest campaigns have offered one thing over all else: variety. Whether it’s the original Modern Warfare’s memorable behind-enemy-lines sniping of All Ghillied Up or Cold War’s KGB infiltration and hallucinogenic episodes, it’s those missions that take you out of the standard first-person shooter cadence that foremost stick in the memory. While we’re yet to play it, it’s therefore encouraging that Black Ops 6 is aiming to pack its campaign full of these moments, so much so Jon Zuk, associate creative director at Raven Software, tells me it's treating each of the levels as “its own mini blockbuster”.

Indeed, Call of Duty is at its best when presented as playable cinema. Tense, tight corridor shootouts open up into large-scale explosive set pieces and one-off experiments – not dissimilar to how Mario platformers introduce ideas for individual levels but with AC-130 gunships instead of animal costumes. Set against the backdrop of the Gulf War in 1991, Black Ops 6 is playing in the shadowy political grey areas that lend themselves to spycraft and subterfuge. So while the campaign will undoubtedly have its louder moments, it's given Raven more scope to experiment with different styles of gameplay.

“We wanted to make sure that each one was memorable and could stand alone,” says lead narrative producer Natalie Pohorski, talking about missions in Black Ops 6. “Each one has unique gameplay opportunities, unique objectives, and how you tackle those.” It’s a sentiment Jon Zuk agrees with, adding, “We didn't want to just create three or four levels that are fun to play, but all kind of feel the same. We wanted to make sure each mission had its thing, its own special, unique sauce to it, as it were. So variety was number one throughout the entire process for us.”

Variety has always been a priority for Raven when it comes to designing COD campaigns. There have always been interesting ideas hidden away, even in the games that are less fondly remembered. It’s