Activision has revealed that they are rescinding Early Access for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s story campaign.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 already had its Early Access beta from August 29th to September 2nd and its open beta from September 5th to the 9th. Usually, the early access period would include an early preview of the story campaign, but that didn’t happen this time.
CharlieIntel shared this statement from an Activision representative:
“The team is fully focused on October 25th. We are excited about all the game has to offer across Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies.
This year, we made the decision to ensure the community gets to dig in to any and all modes that they want at the same time, so we are back to one massive global launch moment October 25th.
As such, there is no Early Access beat this year for Black Ops 6, just the countdown to launch.”
Last month, Activision was victim of a major leak of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s entire story campaign. While press wouldn’t be able to review its gameplay, those who did want to find out the storyline could have watched or read the whole thing.
We don’t know exactly how this affected the decision to pull the story campaign from Early Access, or if it was a factor at all. It would be credible that developers Treyarch and Raven Software were simply too busy to include the story campaign in early access. We anticipate that this is the biggest Call of Duty release in years, with expansions and DLC potentially stretching all the way until next year.
There is no indication here if the story campaign will also be unavailable for reviews in advance of the game’s launch. Last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 came out to terrible reviews, and the biggest sales in the franchise for years.
As it turned out, it was simultaneously true that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 deserved its poor reviews from its limited story campaign, and that the actual players came in droves because of that release’s robust multiplayer offerings. We can’t say the reviewers were duplicitous, but their reviews were out of touch with what gamers actually experienced.
Ultimately, that situation came about because the reviewers weren’t able to review the product waiting for gamers at launch, which was the online multiplayer with the high numbers of players.
It’s something of a dilemma for reviewers; if they have to review the game while people are already playing it, then they can’t protect those gamers from buying a bad game. But once again, how it actually played out led to a huge disconnect between critics and players.
We don’t know if Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s story campaign will also have some issues, but there may be some merit to Activision limiting access to that campaign to reviewers. In that way, they can experience the full game in all its modes, and give a truly complete review that is useful to consumers.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be releasing on October 25, on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows on Steam and Battle.net. It will also be Day One on Game Pass.
