Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Beginner's Guide – Everything you need to know

It's been almost 12 months since Earth completed its final rotation around the sun, and that means one thing: a new Call of Duty game is coming soon. This year is a Treyarch year, which is significant because Treyarch games are typically better received and more highly anticipated than Infinity Ward or Sledgehammer titles.

Black Ops 6 had a pretty successful beta weekend last month, which perfectly demonstrated why Treyarch games are so popular. Even by Call of Duty standards, Black Ops 6 is getting a lot of hype before its release.

Because of the momentum it creates, we expect many new or returning players to take the plunge into the world of Black Ops. Let's take a look at everything you need to know about Black Ops 6.

Related article: New Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies teaser teaser for Return to Alcatraz

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 releases Friday, October 25th at 12:00 PM EST.

There is no early access to the campaign, multiplayer or zombies for Black Ops 6.

There are two editions available for purchase for Black Ops 6. There is the “Standard Edition” and the Vault Edition.”

The Standard Edition costs $70 and the Vault Edition costs $100.

What are the differences between each edition of Black Ops 6?

There aren't nearly as many differences as you might expect. The Vault Edition includes Operator Pack cosmetics, weapon blueprints, and the Season 1 Battle Pass (Season 1 is not expected to launch until November 14th-21st). All non-cosmetic content is included in the standard edition of the game.

As with any CoD, there are a number of smaller changes that aren't all that important. However, Black Ops 6 brings three big changes with its release. These changes are:

Let's look at each one individually.

Omnimovement

Omnimovement is the main innovation and marketing hit of Black Ops 6. The power of omnimovement now allows players to sprint backwards and sideways. Players can dive left or right and backwards. Players can also shoot in the air during a dive.

Movement will be an important area in Black Ops 6 with plenty of room for improvement and skill expression. We've put together a comprehensive guide to omnimovement that will teach you everything you need to know. It could be revolutionary for the CoD franchise, separating really bad players from good players or good players from great players.

Human shields

In recent Call of Duty titles, sneaking up behind players allowed you to perform an execution. An execution is a slower and strategically poor way to kill someone, forcing them to endure a long and exaggerated animation. It's basically just used for BM'ing. In Black Ops 6, when players sneak up on someone from behind, they have the option to take them hostage as a human shield instead of executing them.

Admittedly, this won't be groundbreaking and will significantly change the way multiplayer is played in Call of Duty. However, it should be a pretty interesting mechanic that will give players some fun moments.

Sniper changes

The list of changes to snipers in BO6 is short, but there is only one change that matters. ALL shots from the torso up are one-shot kills in Black Ops 6. This is a significant change.

The sniping behavior in Call of Duty has always been strange and I found it difficult to fit into the way the majority of players play the game. Developers have struggled over the years to find ways to balance a weapon type that should be able to kill with a single bullet but may not be all that good at that one thing.

How do you balance a weapon designed to kill with one shot? Does it require a lot of skill because you have to hit a precise shot? Or does it require no skill at all because there are no tracking and recoil controls and you only have to hit the guy once?

These are the questions that developers have struggled to answer over the years, and in recent CoD titles the snipers have been pretty weak. The ability to one-shot any sniper from the torso up will be a major improvement to sniper strength in this title. It might even end up being too generous, we'll just have to wait and see.

Call of Duty is known for offering a wide range of different game modes. Black Ops 6 should be no different. Players should expect the following:

*: Ranked Matches will not be available until the start of Season 1. This is expected to be the case from November 14th to 21st.

**: Party modes are not always available at launch, but are usually added at some point in the game's lifecycle.

***: Warzone is technically a different game, but will see massive changes to make it much more similar to Black Ops 6.

It would be impossible to cover everything about this game in a single article. However, here are some quick things BO6 players should know about BO6 players: