Summary
TheCall of Dutyfranchise has become defined by its post-launch seasons in recent years, with the IP’s iconic multiplayer experience being almost unrecognizable from its historic foundations. Like most massively popular multiplayer franchises,CoDhas leaned heavily into the live-service post-launch approach to its annual releases, with in-game seasons and battle passes offering an endless loop of content in the way of cosmetics alongside the release of new maps, weapons, and game modes.
While the upcomingCall of Duty: Black Ops 6has won a lot of fans over with its focus on returning to the franchise’s roots, the title will still maintain the seasonal in-game content approach of more recentCoDtitles, and a clear pattern is beginning to form in terms of how Activision handles the final seasons of these annual releases.Modern Warfare 3recently announced the content for one of its last seasons, for example, and the focus onCall of Dutyvillains that these final seasons tend to have is a tradition that is very likely to extend toBlack Ops 6.
Black Ops 6 May Wait Until its Final Seasons To Let its Villains Shine
In the past, the core multiplayer experiences ofCall of Dutyreleases were essentially entirely removed from the single-player narratives of the games, but this is something that has changed with the new seasonal approach that defines the franchise. New in-game seasons often come with fully-fledged cinematics that follow a story that supplements the campaign of a given title, withfan-favoriteCoDcharactersoften appearing and bridging the gap between the franchise’s two biggest modes.
Throughout the recentModern Warfarereboot, characters likeGhost, Soap, and Captain Price have appeared extensively in multiplayer seasons, with multiplayer operator skins for Frank Woods already being marketed as pre-release bonus content forBlack Ops 6. The upcoming game will have a mix of familiar and brand-new faces to pull from in its seasonal multiplayer content, but it seems likely that Activision will wait for the game’s final seasons to pull the trigger on involving iconicBlack Opsvillains in its core multiplayer.
This is a trend that was first made noticeable with 2021’sCall of Duty: Vanguard, with the game surprisingly introducing an all-star villain cast from a wide variety ofCoDsub-franchises for its final season.This season saw the introduction of the likes of Raul Menendez, Al-Asad, Seraph, and Rorke toVanguard, starting a trend that has recently been replicated with one of the final seasons ofModern Warfare 3.
Modern Warfare 3 Bided its Time To Focus on a Big Franchise Villain
The recently launched Season 5 ofModern Warfare 3is potentially the penultimate season of the title, and this fresh wave of content has a surprising focus on Valeria Garza, one of the main villains of 2022’sModern Warfare 2. Valeria was first introduced toCoDmultiplayer as aWarzone 2.0operative in early 2023, only receving a handful of premium cosmetics ever since. It is clear that Valeria is going to be a huge focus ofMW3’s Season 5, however, with the season’s battle pass featuring four unique skins for her,Black Ops 6may save this approach for its own final seasons.
It is currently unclear whothe main antagonist ofBlack Ops 6’s story will be, with a popular theory currently pointing towards Russel Adler skirting the line between ally and villain within the game. This could mean that the multiplayer storyline ofBlack Ops 6might culminate with a return of Adler as a big focus, while the main villain of the game’s Zombies mode, Edward Richtofen, could also be a big draw of these final seasons. While it would not canonically make sense within the timeline ofBlack Ops, a younger Raul Menendez could also be a big content factor inBO6’s final seasons, with the sub-franchise having a great stock of iconic villains to continue theCoDtradition of villain-oriented seasons late into a game’s life cycle.
