With the release of the mid-season update for Black Ops 6 and the new zombies map alongside it, the ‘Warzoneification’ that has been slowly creeping into Call of Duty over the past few years has never been more prevalent.
From the addition of armour plates and crafting stations to zombies all the way to the open-world campaign missions, the influence of Warzone and the addition of its mechanics can be seen all over Black Ops 6. Even the multiplayer is not safe from Warzoneification, with the HVT game mode featuring an armoured plate system. While many new players to the franchise might not notice these changes, veteran fans of Call of Duty are not happy with the additions.
The Major Zombies Changes
While both the campaign and multiplayer have had small mechanics added to them, Zombies is where a lot of Warzone’s influence can be seen. Many of these changes originated in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, but now with the return of older zombie mechanics, the additions are much more noticeable. Not only do we have the addition of armour plates and buy stations in the form of crafting tables and the armory vendor, but we also have weapon rarities to determine how much damage a gun will do – making higher-tier guns a must if you want to make it to later rounds. But they can make early rounds trivial since they will one-shot most Zombies.
These changes are a stark contrast to older Zombies and truly make the game much easier for both newer and veteran players. While this may seem positive, many players view it as negative since it can make Zombies too easy to play and trivialize the game mode, making the Easter egg race even easier than it already can be. Many players pointed out that the Liberty Falls Easter egg was solved mere hours after Black Ops 6 was released, with Terminus also being beaten in the first day. This is a stark contrast from the older Zombie maps that would take days if not weeks to solve the Easter egg. Even the newest map, Citadelle Des Morts, which just released with the mid-season update, was quickly solved and beaten thanks to the addition of armour plates and the purchasable killstreaks from buy stations.
The ‘Warzoneification’ of BO6 Comes with Many Drawbacks
One of the largest drawbacks is the decrease in the amount of points you can farm. No longer are you awarded points for each shot you hit and then more points for a kill. Now you only get points when you fully kill a Zombie or boss and the amount you get is massively reduced. This leads to an artificial difficulty increase as you need to spend points on ammo and other upgrades more often while also being given fewer points overall.
All of these additions and changes lead to a current Zombies environment that is trivial for Zombie veterans while lulling newer players into a false sense of security by having the starting round be overly easy only for the later rounds to be brutal to anyone unprepared. This can leave many new players feeling cheated and abandoning the game mode instead of improving and enjoying their time.
