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For me, videogames are about escaping into fantasy. I want to dive into sprawling realms as a pretty elven assassin or prowl the plains of Diablo 4’s Sanctuary in search of Prime Evils and demonic entities. While I had a soft spot for life games like The Sims as a kid, I’ve never really cared for anything set in a recognizable version of our own world. Call of Duty has always fallen into that same category, not helped by my degrees in genocide history and war studies. I’ve never quite been able to divorce my logical mind from the fact that CoD is, indeed, a fictional videogame with a historical setting, versus a historical videogame with fictionalized elements. So while Black Ops 6’s ‘90s backdrop piqued my interest, I was pretty happy to sit it out.
My partner, however, is a very different story. Steelbook in hand, he appeared in the early hours of Saturday morning and played most of the campaign throughout the weekend. As a bonafide CoD hater, I initially lamented my lost Saturday and Sunday, but a part of me was interested: what do CoD games look like these days? While the initial campaign missions had me loosely engaged, when we got to Emergence, the narrative’s halfway mark, I felt myself slowly sitting upright. In an instant, Black Ops 6 had become my sort of game.
Blending elements of Remedy’s Control and the bizarre FPS game Atomic Heart (a personal favorite) with brutal bosses, Emergence is a fever dream. Our protagonist, William ‘Case’ Calderon, is thrust into the bowels of a laboratory in Kentucky in search of The Cradle, a supposed bioweapon that appears to cause hyper-aggression in its subjects. One accident with a particularly rickety elevator later, and Case is thrust into the heart of the abandoned facility with nothing but a shattered gas mask and a lungful of eerie green chemicals for company. The real world fades away, and as he awakens he’s surrounded by a collection of mysterious white mannequins that, of course, are about to come to life. Fun fact: I hate mannequins.
But they don’t remain mannequins for long. Instead, Case sees them as various zombies from the game’s signature spinoff mode. They rush you, surround you, and overwhelm you, with bosses taking the form of higher-level foes, including the infamous Mimic. Not only is this the perfect throughline that connects somewhat disparate modes, but it’s also just outright cool to experience. It turns CoD into a weird, twisted horror game, and I loved every minute of it. While not everyone’s appreciated the more out-there approach, some level of experimentation was clearly required here after last year’s snoozefest.
In our Modern Warfare 3 review, PK describes it as “the worst CoD yet,” giving it a particularly brutal 4/10 and calling the campaign one “that even the most die-hard fans would struggle to enjoy.” Activision has certainly leveled up coming into Black Ops 6, and while Emergence may feel too outlandish for some, it proves that the team is at least attempting to innovate with the more cerebral BO games. If I had to choose between a brief, boring rehash of older campaigns and a weird zombie horror shooter set in a gorgeous contemporary setting, I know which one I’d pick.
It’s also just something different. My consistent complaint about CoD’s campaigns is they feel so expected. I played Cold War, for example, and while it was a fun experience framed by one of history’s most fascinating time periods, it lacked the staying power of the best entries. I think we’re still chasing the glory days of CoD 4 and 2009’s MW2, but Emergence is something wild and new; it feels like a step in the right direction.
For me, Emergence has flicked some sort of switch. While I’ve never quite been able to divorce myself from the series’ consistent historical meddling and somewhat gung-ho clumsiness, Emergence seems to have broken that cycle. It’s finally hit home: CoD is a fictional videogame with a historical setting, and honestly, it’s quite cool.
I love to be proven wrong, and since writing this I’ve been informed that Black Ops 3 has some similar trippiness that I’d enjoy. My partner’s copy of BO6 is currently sitting on the breakfast bar in the kitchen, and every time I spot it I’m tempted to take it for a spin. I’m invested: I want to know what happens next with The Cradle, how the US is involved in its creation, and how we’re going to go about bringing down Pantheon. For the first time in my life, I actively want to play a Call of Duty game – someone, pinch me.