Last week, I downloaded Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 after a 10-year hiatus. As a product manager, I’m fascinated by how products evolve—and COD has made some surprising strides.
As a fun peek behind the curtain, a week ago this post was going to be titled “5 ways I hate how Call of Duty (COD) has changed” – but I must face the facts, I’m getting older, and I shouldn’t hate something just because it’s different to how I remember. But be assured I’m conscious of the abysmal UI, feature bloat and typical annual COD badness e.g. rampant spawn killing.
1. COD is now free(ish)
While games are extortionately expensive nowadays, I can’t stress enough how good younger gamers have it with Game Pass. I remember the cruddy feeling of being in a party chat with your friends all playing the latest COD or FIFA while you’re stuck on last year’s edition. Sure it’s a first world problem, but it’s still not nice.
With Game Pass Microsoft have in my opinion made gaming accessible, giving gamers access to hundreds of titles at just £17.99 a month. The fact COD: Black Ops 6 was free last month has even brought veteran players like me back into the series. I think it was a brilliant move!
2. Play with ALL of your friends!
Whether you’re on a PlayStation, Xbox or PC anyone can play together using cross-play. Again thinking back to fifteen year old Scott, this was something myself and friends longed for and seemed impossible at the time. Friendship groups are no longer divided by platform!
Whilst doing some research for this one, it seems like not everyone is happy about cross-play. I’ve always been of the understanding that PC gamers with their setups have an advantage in first-person shooters. Anecdotally I can’t say I’ve noticed certain players doing better than others but no doubt the data is out there somewhere. Anyway I’d rather see this balanced somehow rather than limiting players back to their respective platforms.
3. Climbing, sliding and diving is exciting
Perhaps unsurprising as game consoles have become more powerful over the years, but the gameplay just generally feels much better. Players interact with the environment more authentically and can traverse it more realistically. I think this is best seen in zombies by how the zombies move around the environment, jumping on cars, climbing over walls and so on.
The sliding and diving in particular is brilliant. Few moments rival a final kill cam where someone has dived around a corner, spun around mid-air and popped a headshot on a camper. I was actually surprised to learn diving and sliding was introduced forever ago (Black Ops and Ghosts respectively), but I’m still enjoying their addition.
4. Complex weapon depth
In a future post I’ll drill into my gripes with the level of complexity and feature bloat in COD, but one area it works well is weapon customisations. To me this is best seen with the humble ‘noob tube‘ which features versions that fire: traditional grenades, impact grenades, smoke grenades and a drill charge. It feels like there are a million different grips, scopes, and magazine adjustments too to make a weapon truly unique and “your rifle”.
There’s always the fear I have with all modern games that I’m not using an optimal weapon combination. But that being said the game is reasonably transparent in how different attachments affect handling, accuracy, firepower and so forth. If one combination is too powerful, the creators of COD should hopefully be capable enough in 2024 to quickly patch and rebalance the game where appropriate.
5. Points for assists
Despite the hours I put into COD over the years, I was never very good at the crucially important “kill the other team”. Instead I loved to contribute in other ways e.g. sacrificing myself for objectives in Search and Destroy and shooting down kill streaks (of course I loved trolling too and camping in a corner with a riot shield). However somewhat unfairly this meant I almost never got any major kill streak rewards.
Since Black Ops 4 kills have been replaced with eliminations and you’re rewarded for contributing to eliminating a player, even if you didn’t fire the final bullet! You also get points now for flash bangs, decoys, destroying enemy equipment and contributing to objectives. This works great for my play style and I’m getting more score streak rewards than ever before (well still not that many). In the game mode Kill Order, you can easily get your score streaks just by staying alive!
Conclusions
So there we go, if I were to summarise what I like most about COD in 2024 it would probably be:
- Accessibility: More players than ever can get involved at a reasonable price point and fewer buddies are left out.
- Supported play styles: Depending on how you like to play COD you’re likely to find a combination of weapons/perks to fit your play style.
- Polish: There is less friction between the player and the environment, allowing you to climb, dive and slide to traverse the map in an authentic manner.
I know the internet has some strong feelings about COD so please don’t come after me if my mild-takes made you angry. I’m just a guy in his thirties trying to squeeze in a game of Search and Destroy here and there and not die immediately.
Follow me on BlueSky for more musing where I tangentially link product mangement to my interests.