The first Black Ops 6 beta was bland even for Call of Duty

When Black Ops 6 got its big reveal at the Xbox Gaming Showcase in June, one word was every Treyarch developer's lips: Omnimovement. The studio was talking a big game about how much this new feature, which lets you sprint in any direction (including backwards) no matter which way you're facing, would dramatically change Call of Duty.

"We truly believe that once you experience Omnimovement, there's no going back," Treyarch said at the time.

Sideways sprinting, sliding, and diving did sound kinda neat, but it struck me as a detail, and I was surprised that Omnimovement was the only major new feature announced for Black Ops 6. I figured Treyarch had some big surprises prepared for the August 30 beta. What's new with Create-a-Class, Gunsmith, modes?

Not a lot, it turns out. I blazed through the first 20 levels of Black Ops 6 multiplayer progression last weekend, and my friends and I agree: Black Ops 6 isn't bad so far, but it is bland. You're probably familiar with how CoD works at this point, so let's hit the most important points:

Omnimovement is just fine

I was surprised by how nice Omnimovement feels in practice and by how little it matters. As promised, sprinting in any direction is very natural, and the instinct to Max Payne dive over every table and off suspended platforms is extremely strong. The friends I grouped with all weekend, several of whom have been grinding Modern Warfare 3 nonstop the last few months, all dug the freedom of movement.

But as the beta went on and we got a couple dozen matches under our belts, we all acknowledged that we'd mostly reverted to playing CoD the same as always—sprinting, occasionally sliding or hopping around a corner, but never really diving. The enhanced freedom of movement is empowering, but the fundamentals of Call of Duty can chafe against the mechanic. For example: Despite how fun it is to slide and dive any which way, sliding slows you down and restricts movement for a moment. Diving around corners was fun for a while, until we noticed that locking our bodies in a predictable arc was losing gunfights for us.

Even 360-degree sprinting had a downside for me: reinforcing a bad habit of tac-sprinting everywhere instead of slowing down and letting enemies run into me. So we dialed back our Ominimovement-juiced brains and got better results from the old-fashioned ways. I'm curious how BO6 movement habits will evolve when we've more than a handful of days to play with it. One thing seems certain: If you liked the ways Modern Warfare 3 sped up CoD and empowered slide canceling/bunny hopping, you'll be eating well here.

Treyarch's guns still feel off

I was really curious how Treyarch's first Call of Duty built on Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare engine would feel. As expected, it's an easy transition. Black Ops 6 feels similar to Modern Warfare 3 (which played nearly the same as Modern Warfare 2). That's probably for the best: I thought Black Ops Cold War's gunplay was a significant step back from Infinity Ward's MW reboot, and you can immediately tell that Black Ops 6 benefits from little things this engine does exceptionally well, like first-person animations and hit detection.

Still, there are lots of Treyarch details in Black Ops 6 that I really don't like. For some reason, Treyarch's idea of punchy, impactful gun audio always sounds like a marble rattling around a tin can. Pair that with an awkwardly loud default hit marker noise that sounds like someone's smacking a steel pole, and it leaves a bruise on what's usually one of Call of Duty's biggest appeals: great gunfeel. 

Create-a-class is not sparking joy

Black Ops 6's beta only has a chunk of its guns and (presumably) attachments, but what's here isn't making an exciting impression. You've got your M4 equivalent, AK, a smattering of shotguns and snipers, and an SMG that everyone thinks is overpowered—the usual, but I'm let down by the build crafting so far.

Treyarch has removed the negative side effects on most grips, magazines, barrels, and muzzles so that basically anything you throw on is a definite upgrade. I like how this speeds up gunsmithing—unlike the last few years of CoD, I haven't had to spend any time staring at meters that change recoil values centimeters at a time. It's easy to read the obvious benefits of attachments and slap them on before the next round begins—I just wished I cared about what those attachments are doing. For the gun I leveled up the highest, the XM4, it seemed like the game only gave me two distinct roads to go down: create a laser beam, or make it pretty OK at hipfire and still also largely a laser beam.

CoD as usual, but Treyarch had an opportunity here to carry over Sledgehammer's best addition to last year's Modern Warfare 3: Aftermarket Parts. These were attachments you had to unlock via special challenges, and in most cases, they radically transformed how a gun operates—revolvers reworked into funky sniper rifles, a foregrip with a hidden knife for quick melee kills, a rifle that grows a second barrel. Over 2024, Sledgehammer has turned MW3's Gunsmith into a mad scientist's lair, pumping out ballistic abominations that I've never fired in this series before.

So far, the builds coming out of Black Ops 6 are pedestrian compared to the creations of MW3. (Though, to be fair, MW3's builds also weren't wild at the start.) There's reason to believe BO6 will pick up the pace—it's still early days, and Treyarch is the CoD studio known for throwing quirky weapons into the mix, like BO1's explosive crossbow and ballistic knife (both of which have made repeat appearances since). Maybe BO6 will be a late bloomer as well, but I don't take it as a great sign that my friends had already returned to MW3 by Sunday night.

I'm keeping my mind open for the second weekend of the Blops beta. That starts tomorrow, September 6, and will be open for all. It'll also have a bigger map and mode pool than the first weekend.