Today’s story is a lesson in caution in how to approach rumors and leaks.
The GamingLeaksAndRumors subreddit blew up when extas1s, a frequent and popular source for video game rumors, claimed that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was made play to win.
Since extas1s is not a native English speaker, we do believe that this rumor spread based on the translation in this reddit. But we aren’t sure if this was translated by a person who spoke extas1s’ native tongue, or if it was machine translated in some way.
Accurate or not, the translation is noteworthy for that reason. Here’s what it said:
“As you know, a few days ago, Call Of Duty introduced a new sound system for Black Ops 6 (the previous ones were broken).
Well, it seems that these sound tweaks for Black Ops 6 and Warzone are going to cost real money, according to what people who have already entered the game have been able to see, since it is mentioned that there is a FREE TRIAL.
The price and features are still unknown, but if we start charging for game tweaks… Something is wrong there, and it will undoubtedly be one of the worst decisions in the history of the franchise.”
Since that post came out, however, more sober sources came out to clarify this information. We want to credit CharlieIntel for helping to clear up any misunderstanding, but we will show you evidence of the correct information, from the original sources.
Activision explained in a blog post last week that they were introducing new audio technology to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. For this title, Treyarch’s audio team worked with Microsoft’s Project Acoustics team to bring these improvements, and these changes would be coming to all Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players on all platforms. Yes, including PlayStation.
To cut through the jargon, the game is adding HRTF (head-related transfer function) spatial audio, the latest spatial audio technology available. Activision has licensed this technology with audio company Embody.
And Embody’s own website has a dedicated page for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. They explain that all players will get to play with a Universal Profile for their technology, on Enhanced Headphone Mode.
If you want to personalize your profile, they also offer a paid tier. Embody’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 personalized audio profile is priced at $ 19.99. It is offered separately across each platform, including separate items for Steam and Battle.net.
Embody offers the same product on Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy XIV, but both on PC only. It seems this is the first time Embody is offering this on this scale, and including consoles.
So, is all of this potentially play-to-win? It can certainly come up in a debate, but it isn’t as clear cut as the original rumor made it out to be. One could argue that buying a high end video game controller like the SCUF Reflex FPS, or a high end headset, like the Audeze Maxwell Wireless, could give some Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players an advantage over others.
But if a newcomer who bought up all these premium real life and in-game enhancements went up against an esports player, they’re still going to lose. Since there is a baseline HTRF audio setting available to everyone, the playing field is close enough that most players can compensate and improve their odds without paying up for it.
While it’s clear we know who the source of this rumor is, we don’t think extas1s was being malicious. It’s likely that something got lost between translating his message, and extas1s having a sudden emotional reaction when they saw some data, that they forgot to verify their information first.
We have seen extas1s share accurate rumors before, so it’s easy to see how they could have gotten this one wrong. We know they saw some real information, but ether they misread it or didn’t notice that this information was already available to publicly verify.
This should be a lesson to you, our readers, and it’s one we will try to take to heart as well. Even when we decide some rumors are worth reporting on, we shouldn’t take them as confirmed information, until it’s officially confirmed information.
