The spy fiction genre can trace its roots all the way back to the early 1800s, and it’s remained a fairly popular genre ever since, with major franchises likeJames BondandMission: Impossiblestill dominating the box office whenever a new entry rolls around. Naturally, the spy genre has found its way to video games, though it’s been a notoriously difficult genre to adapt. Far too often,spy video gamesstruggle to balance slower-paced espionage with high-octane action, butCall of Duty: Black Ops 6does a surprisingly great balancing act.
Carrying forward many of the same themes as its Cold War-set predecessor,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign revolves around distrust in political organizations and world leaders, and a gang of former CIA agents trying to save the world against all odds.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6is a spy thriller through and through, and its story and action seem to have been inspired by the aforementionedMission: Impossibleseries.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Campaign Shares Some DNA With Mission: Impossible
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Campaign Is a Mission: Impossible-Like Spy Thriller
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign features a premise that will seem all too familiar to long-timeMission: Impossiblefans. After a high-value target extraction goes awry and a mysterious new military organization known as The Pantheon rears its head,Frank Woods and his team of black ops agentsare suspended from the CIA. Believing they’re the only ones who can stop Pantheon’s nefarious plans, Woods and his team are forced to go rogue.
Now actively hunted by the CIA, Woods and his team are truly on their own, with their only respite being a safe house in Bulgaria known as ‘The Rook.’ Without spoiling too much,Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaignbuilds to a climactic, veryMission: Impossible-inspired ending in which Woods and his team are in a race against time to stop Pantheon’s devastating bioweapon attack that will undoubtedly kill millions.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Campaign Borrows a Few Mission: Impossible Set Pieces
Though Frank Woods' team of rogue black ops agents may not have government assistance, they still have access to a small arsenal of classic spy gadgetry.Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign will have players sneaking behind enemy lines, using disguises to blend in with the crowd, using remote cars to disable power supplies, lockpicking doors, hacking into secret frequencies, and crawling through air vents and underground tunnels, to name just a few examples of the game’sMission: Impossible-like mechanics.
Many ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6’s campaign set pieces also feel heavily inspired byMission: Impossible, with one of the best examples beingthe mission ‘Most Wanted,’ which sees players sneak their way into a political charity event located above a secret CIA prison. The player is given the simple objective of obtaining an ambassador’s retinal scan, and they’re given several different ways to approach it.
One way sees players steal a note from a magnate’s jacket in the cloakroom, meet up with the man, steal his pager, and organize a meeting with the ambassador in the venue’s kitchen. This culminates in a brief fistfight with the ambassador’s bodyguards in a sequence that feels very reminiscent ofMission: Impossible - Fallout’s bathroom scene.
AnotherBlack Ops 6mission sees players pulling off a heist in a casino, an activity that involves hacking into mainframes, swimming through underground waterways, winning a game of high-stakes poker, and passing keycards between team members using sleight of hand.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
WHERE TO PLAY
Forced to go rogue. Hunted from within. This is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.Developed by Treyarch and Raven, Black Ops 6 is a spy action thriller set in the early 90s, a period of transition and upheaval in global politics, characterized by the end of the Cold War and the rise of the United States as a single superpower. With a mind-bending narrative, and unbound by the rules of engagement, this is signature Black Ops.The Black Ops 6 Campaign provides dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay that includes a variety of play spaces with blockbuster set pieces and action-packed moments, high-stakes heists, and cloak-and-dagger spy activity.In a best-in-class Multiplayer experience, players will test their skills across 16 new maps at launch, including 12 core 6v6 maps and 4 Strike maps that can be played 2v2 or 6v6.Black Ops 6 also marks the epic return of Round-Based Zombies, the fan-favorite mode where players will take down hordes of the undead in two brand-new maps at launch. Post-launch, players can look forward to even more exciting maps and groundbreaking experiences dropping into both Multiplayer and Zombies.
