Black Ops 6’s beta has now kicked off, and players in their hundreds of thousands are pouring onto the platform to get a taste of the next Call of Duty game. It’s an early access period, but the public beta goes live shortly on September 6.
It was somewhat expected this year, but the sentiment surrounding Black Ops 6 is already quite positive. I’ve been neck-deep in the Black Ops 6 beta and am pleased to announce that it’s solid, even if cheaters have already managed to infest it.
Inevitable
Clips have surfaced online showing cheaters disrupting the Black Ops 6 beta, which isn’t a huge surprise. The moment a new Call of Duty title is revealed, cheat developers get their heads down and start working on cheats and hacks as soon as they’re able. It’s strange, but there are some disturbed folks out there who get a kick from cheating in a beta.
It’s the same kind of people who thought they’d gain something from cheating in the alpha for Delta Force, a free-to-play shooter.
Cheating aside, Black Ops 6 is rock solid and has the potential to be the best Call of Duty title in years. It smacks of Cold War, which is a huge win for me and many others, but innovations like ‘Omnimovement’ only make it better. It’s dramatically fluid, with the new movement mechanics making it a dream to fly around the map with reckless abandon.
How Does The Black Ops 6 Beta Play?
The weapons available in the Black Ops 6 beta are already quite balanced, and they look and sound phenomenal. In my opinion, Treyarch has succeeded in putting together a stellar title where the overall appearance of the thing is concerned. It runs smooth as butter on a high-end PC, and everything from the UI to the menus are clean.
The maps that are available in the beta are great, and I especially enjoy Derelict because of the overall ‘post-apocalyptic’ vibe of the map. I’ve got no issues with Scud and Skyline, and all three maps seem relatively easy to learn. Only time will tell how they fare in the competitive scene, but for now, they’re ticking the necessary boxes.
I was fortunate to get the best mix of maps and modes possible in my first few matches, getting a taste of TDM, Hardpoint, and Domination across each of the three maps, and as I played, I couldn’t find many faults at all with Black Ops 6.
If I have one major complaint, it’s that the TTK seems inconsistent. It can sometimes take a huge amount of effort to kill one enemy, but I believe that’s because there are more granular hitboxes in Black Ops 6 than ever before, so it matters where you plant your shots.
I’ve also got an issue with the identification of bodies – laying down in Omnimovement makes you look like a body at certain angles, which can make it tough to spot enemies in the middle of a high-octane fight.
The meta weapons are already emerging, and the movement-focused players are having a blast, but overall, it seems to accommodate casual players quite nicely. I’ve not played Call of Duty properly for several months and I was able to produce a massively positive KD in every match, and our own Tom Henderson managed to secure a nuke in his second game:
This year, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be available on Game Pass, so if you’re a subscriber, it’s a no-risk investment. From what we’ve seen in recent trailers and leaks, the campaign looks brilliant, the Zombies offering seems like a bit of fan service, and the multiplayer platform, as tested, is proving to be extremely entertaining.
I’ll continue to pick my way through the Black Ops 6 beta, but first impressions are shaping up very nicely. This could be the saving grace that Call of Duty has sorely needed in the last few years, and if Activision can fix the issues with cheaters, it’ll be a winner for sure.
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Agreed with everything you said. The wall hackers and aim botters are bottom feeders but I’m certainly enjoying myself. The XM4 has been my go-to but I see the PDW mostly out there.
The game is the exact same as the last three/four entries, just with different movement. People need to stop falling for this.