It hasn’t even been a week since Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was released to the masses, but even so, the developer, Treyarch, has released a small snippet of what players can expect to see by the end of the week: a return to Nuketown and the addition of Infected mode.
“Launch was only the beginning,” Treyarch says. “Tomorrow, the Infected are coming to play. Nuketown joins the party on Friday. LFG.” Infected and CoD go back at least as far as Call of Duty 4 custom games, though eventually Activision started giving it the official playlist treatment in Ghosts, Advanced Warfare, and Infinite Warfare.
Similar to Living Dead or Infection in Halo games, Infection in Call of Duty starts with one person becoming infected and basically turning into a zombie. The remaining players (usually called survivors) then need to try to survive an oncoming wave of infected coming their way. The round ends when either all the survivors are dead, or the timer runs out.
So far, Treyarch hasn’t said much about Infected and whether or not this mode will function like previous ones. But Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2023) kept the mode as it had been in previous games, so it’s very likely that we’ll see the same move for Black Ops 6 (though maybe the “infected” of this iteration will look like actual zombies). It’s a great mode that can provide chaotic and thrilling moments, like when one player manages to get a 55-kill streak in just 50 seconds thanks to all the infected racing up a choke point to their death.
While Infected is definitely something to look forward to, there’s no doubt that Nuketown will probably steal the show when it’s released for Black Ops 6 this Friday. Nuketown is a fan favorite for its iconic nuclear test site setting and small size, and while it’ll be great to enjoy it in Black Ops 6, it’s clear that players are finding other launch maps difficult to deal with.
Spawn points are a common pain point. Staff writer Morgan Park found several glaring issues with spawn points in Black Ops 6 maps, like spawning close to where he just died, in direct line of sight of the player who just killed him, at the exact same respawn point, or dying within seconds of spawning thanks to a sniper camped out near a spawn point. On the smaller maps, the issues are even worse.
Other players have also noted how chaotic many of the new maps feel. “It seems no matter what the map is they all play the same,” user Qwayze wrote on the BO6 subreddit. “All maps are now designed so you spawn within two seconds of being able to shoot someone, you kill them, they spawn behind you, rinse and repeat.”
I always find Call of Duty’s multiplayer to be pretty chaotic, so in that sense, it doesn’t seem too different from usual. There are always some folks complaining about CoD’s maps every year, but even so, it does seem like this year’s map problems are a step beyond the usual. I’m not sure whether adding Nuketown will help quell the annoyance, especially as it has a reputation for being so small that spawn kills are common, but maybe it’ll serve as a decent distraction for players, even if it’s just for a short time.
