Black Ops 6’s Coolest Mission Shows It’s Time Call of Duty Left Modern Warfare Behind

ign.com:

Warning: Full spoilers for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign follow.

The 2020s have not been kind to Call of Duty’s single-player campaigns. Black Ops Cold War was squeezed thin by the COVID pandemic. Vanguard was a rote, forgettable trip back to the war that started it all. Modern Warfare 2 was a hollow cover of the series’ greatest hits, while its 2023 sequel is largely considered the worst COD campaign ever made. Though chaotic development cycles inflicted by publisher Activision certainly haven’t helped, the past few years have highlighted that Call of Duty’s tried-and-tested approach is wearing thin. In 2007, the sniper battles of All Ghillied Up and all-in pushes of War Pig were pure adrenaline. Today, their modern equivalents feel increasingly like warmed-up leftovers.

Thank goodness, then, for this year’s Black Ops 6 and its reinvigorating campaign. Every one of its missions points to an interesting future for Call of Duty single-player, be that its opportunity-based intelligence gathering gala that copies Hitman’s homework, the Metal Gear Solid 5-like open world level dotted with mini objectives, or the perspective-hopping casino heist that’s painted in shades of GTA 5. But if Call of Duty is to pin its single-player destiny on any one of Black Ops 6’s ideas, I’d like to make the case for its most left-field choice: its delightfully messed-up homage to Resident Evil.

By far the coolest level in Black Ops 6’s campaign is the sixth mission, Emergence. In the depths of a secret underground facility you’re subjected to a gas attack that causes you to hallucinate the undead. It’s a convenient way to crowbar elements of Call of Duty’s ever-popular zombies mode into the campaign, and for a moment I was reminded of Black Ops 3’s dreadful attempt at the same idea. But, thankfully, rather than devolve into an ugly playable teaser for another game mode, the level transforms into the campaign’s most creative and memorable mission.

Emergence’s broad structure is