AsCall of Duty: Black Ops 6prepares for the launch of its second in-game season, a complete picture of the Treyarch title’s overall legacy is starting to take shape. While so much post-launch attention forCoDreleases is given to core multiplayer and other modes like Zombies, the campaign of any entry to the series is still a deeply important and influential aspect that holds a lot of sway in terms of how a title is received and looked back upon.
A lot of the pre-release attention forCall of Duty: Black Ops 6was centered around the game’s single-player narrative, with Treyarch going all-out with live-action teaser trailers and ARG websites to give fans their first glimpses of the title’s campaign. While controversies still linger around the multiplayer and Zombies ofBlack Ops 6, the campaign remains a generally celebrated and successful part of the title, and hopefully this sees the return of early access to futureCoDcampaigns after an understandable absence of this feature.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Renewed the Hype Around CoD Campaigns
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign took the popular sub-franchise to the early 1990s around the time of the Gulf War, once again exploring the world of covert government-led operations, espionage, and extremely high stakes. The campaign did well to appeal to fans of allBlack Opseras by havingold and new characters like Frank Woods and Russell Adlerat the forefront of the narrative, withBlack Ops 6’s story standing as a shining aspect of the release partly because of this.
Alongside things like a revamped safe house hub interlinking each mission and a genuinely engaging and ambitious narrative,Black Ops 6has essentially restored faith and the expectations of quality inCall of Dutycampaigns, which was extremely important given the recent lows of the franchise in this department.2023’sModern Warfare 3possessed one of the most poorly-received campaigns in the franchise’s recent history due to its extremely short length, withMW3’s infamously short development time creating many issues that struck a blow to the IP’s reputation.
Modern Warfare 3was reportedly developed in only 16 months, a far-cry away from the franchise’s usual three-year development cycle.
Prior toBlack Ops 6,Call of Dutywas experiencing a fairly consistent trend of offering the campaigns of the series' annual releases as early access before their major release dates. This gave fans an excellent opportunity to fully explore and give time to a given title’s single-player mode without the distraction or pressure to dive straight into the massivelypopular multiplayer experiences ofCall of Duty, with early access campaigns doing well to boost the hype in the days before a full launch.
CoD Should Not Let MW3’s Shortcomings Define It Going Forward
Modern Warfare 3took this early access campaign approach to the detriment of the full game, setting an immediately controversial precedent that only carried forward into the official release. This may partly explain why Treyarch chose not to give playersearly access to the story ofBlack Ops 6, despite the positive sentiment that the game’s campaign cultivated. With the success ofBlack Ops 6’s campaign now being established, hopefully, the tides of this approach can once again change.
Current reports suggest that2025’sCoDrelease will be a direct sequel toBlack Ops 2, for example, and the positive momentum thatBO6’s story has created will shine through to this kind of project’s narrative. Even after the understandable blip in early access content thanks to the shortcomings ofMW3, the reputational comeback ofBlack Ops 6’s campaign should set a fresh precedent of once again offering early access periods toCoDcampaigns, allowing fans to separate two of the most popular modes for the IP without any fear of missing out on either of their distinct experiences.
