The Black Ops series has captivated audiences for years, delivering thrilling stories over more than a decade of game releases. Whether or not each individual entry hits the mark, Treyarch aims for the moon with each and every release, always trying to produce a more compelling story time and time again.
Early fan reviews suggest the iconic developer has outdone itself this time. Heaps of praise have been thrown around so far. In fact, one particular late-game mission has been credited for elevating the Black Ops 6 campaign into an new stratosphere entirely.
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The mission is called Emergence, and it’s unlike anything else in Call of Duty. Without pulling back any of its secrets, we’ll just say the story switches tone, takes a big swing, and delivers an absolute sucker punch in the player’s direction.
This is the kind of thing you want to play for yourself, so there’s no spoilers ahead, just a brief look at the kind of praise this mission is drawing in the wee hours after release.
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“Just finished what I consider to be the best Call of Duty campaign mission of all time,” ModernWarzone tweeted. “You’ll know which mission I’m talking about when you get there and you’ll definitely want to experience it for yourself. Bravo [,] Raven Software. “Emergence” is your best work yet.”
“No spoilers but man is it phenomenal. I recommend the campaign solely for that mission alone. Campaign was fantastic. The entire dev team deserves their flowers for that mission alone,” one Reddit user said.
Another fan gassed up the campaign as a whole, but also cited Emergence as the highlight point of the experience. “This is a Top 3 COD campaign. Case is a Top 3 protagonist. Emergence is the best COD Mission of all time! In Treyarch we trust.”
Hype has started to spread elsewhere on the internet too, with more than one Reddit user warning fans that they’re “not ready” for what lies ahead of them in this level, and many similar threads popping up by the minute.
This kind of success is a timely arrival for Call of Duty fans. Modern Warfare 3 (2023)’s Campaign faced massive criticism on release, both for being far too short for a standard Call of Duty experience, but also for switching to a Warzone-inspired open combat system for much of its runtime.
In that way, Black Ops 6 is a step back into Call of Duty tradition. Missions are once again a carefully guided experience, allowing players to creatively solve their problems, but without the open-world elements which plagued MW3‘s reception. This is what allows Emergence to shine. Treyarch retains control of the pacing all the way through. Each twist and turn is carefully calculated, and you can feel it every second you’re in the game.
If you’ve been considering skipping out on the Campaign this year, maybe this is your sign to give it a chance. If nothing else, you’ll get to experience perhaps the most memorable Call of Duty mission since Modern Warfare (2007)’s ‘All Ghillied Up’.
