Black Ops 6 Beta Turned Me Into a Knee-Shocking Opponent and Now I Can't Go Back to Modern Warfare 3

It’s been 14 years since Call of Duty introduced dolphin diving to the masses, and in that time I’ve often wondered if the feature did more harm than good to me. I’m not a particularly good gamer, and the desire to do so something is often stronger than waiting to do what is right. Hold the corner? Move quietly? That’s all well and good if you care about the little things like winning, but unfortunately it’s inconsistent with the overwhelming impulse to throw my character to the ground in every situation.

Every time I successfully dolphin-dive through enemy fire to score a point, I also find myself careening around corners and getting peppered with bullets for my troubles. It’s a habit I’ve been trying to break over the past year, but playing Black Ops 6 beta tested my resolve like nothing else. With omni-mobility – which amounts to the ability to dive, slide, or sprint in any direction – I gave in completely to my stupidest compulsion.

Move and destroy

Two Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players use omni-move to slide past each other on the Skyline map — (Image source: Activision Blizzard)

Despite my obsession with diving and sliding, I was very wary of the all-movement. Partly because I don’t trust myself enough to exercise restraint, but mostly because I have trouble keeping up with Call of Duty when the game gets too fast. I abandoned that series for Battlefield when jet-jumping and jetpacks entered the equation, and I didn’t return until 2021’s Vanguard. After spending a few days with the Black Ops 6 beta, it’s true that its pace is lightning-fast compared to last year’s Modern Warfare 3 — not so much in terms of time-to-kill, which feels just a tad faster than usual, but because of the frantic pace at which everyone moves. But instead of being overwhelming, it’s so incredible that I spent the entire beta diligently trying to perfect its movement.

Yes, you can seamlessly move from cover to cover, firing constantly, but making it work is another matter. That mobility comes with a big trade-off – the large aiming penalties mean you’ll struggle to hit a target that’s not within reach when sliding or diving, and trying to shoot while moving that fast is a feat in itself. But when you can sneak around a corner and shoot two enemies before they can look down, it feels phenomenal. On the other hand, gunfights are less predictable, since whoever’s shooting at you can now jump from almost anywhere. Even when I actively tried to avoid jumping as much, it’s still much harder to maintain a position or even stay alive for long – the angles you’re fighting from change very quickly, rewarding players who chase kills and stay mobile over those who prefer to crouch and play reactively.

It’s as chaotic as it sounds, but that’s partly due to the novelty of it all. Every map now flows strangely because, combined with players sliding around at blinding speeds, no one really knows where they’re going. It doesn’t help that they’re pretty dense. Skylight, for example, is a rooftop apartment with vents and a panic room to crawl through. It’s a small map, but the verticality and huge windows in almost every room make it hard to predict where you’re going to be attacked from. My favorite map is Rewind, a ’90s shopping mall with a shiny vinyl-floored movie rental store. In addition to its cool aesthetic, it has a nice mix of open streets and tight interiors, meaning it’s perfect for trying out a wider range of best black ops 6 gear.

A group of players battling it out in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta

(Image source: Activision Blizzard)

Speaking of which: it’s just an SMG right now. The Jackal PDW is so far ahead of the pack that it’s barely competitive. The question is whether many of Black Ops 6’s maps will be more open than the beta’s, but for now it looks like SMGs and shotguns will benefit the most from the omnimovement tricks. That said, the assault rifles on offer feel a million times better than most of Modern Warfare 3’s snooze rigs. The XM4 is light and agile, while the AK-47, while terrible at long range, will shred people like paper when you inevitably run into them at knee level. I’m even having a blast with the Marine SP shotgun, which is a breath of fresh air – I fell in love with the flashy bolt-action rifles in Modern Warfare 2 (2022), but the last year of MW3 ruined them.

There are areas that aren’t all that interesting to me. I’m still not sure if the time-to-kill isn’t a bit too short, and I worry that sniping as a playstyle will be doomed if those dominant submachine guns and hypermobile tactics turn out to be an accurate glimpse into the future. I’m also not sold on the intentionally chaotic flow of each map, but it might be a bit more digestible if the ones we haven’t played yet offered a bit more variety. But as a whole, Black Ops 6 feels pretty damn good to play. A bit too good, in fact: after sliding and sliding at will, Modern Warfare 3 now feels too stiff by comparison. I’d love nothing more than to go down the big chute into Rust like a big, rusty water slide, but rather than go back to the last game, I’ll probably play the ongoing beta to death and then abstain from anything Call of Duty-related until release. I can’t wait to see how the full game turns out – and if Black Ops 6’s zombie mode lets us slide attack the undead, you’ll have to pick me up off the floor in October.

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Black Ops 6 Beta Turned Me Into a Knee-Shocking Opponent and Now I Can’t Go Back to Modern Warfare 3

Move and destroy

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