Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Season 6 Review: Is It Any Good?

Published: 08 Oct 2021 3:37 PM +00:00 Updated: 20 Oct 2021 3:11 AM +00:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's Season 6 has gone live, bringing with it fresh balancing, new guns, maps, operators, skins, and bundles as well as another Battle Pass to level up. There's more to come in Season 6, especially as it gets Reloaded and the Haunting Event drops, but there's already tons of new stuff to try out. In this article, we'll tell you the good and the bad about Season 6 and let you know if it's worth your time.

First off, Cold War players rejoice: the EM2, the TEC-9, and the Marshal have all received nerfs with the Season 6 update. These nerfs come after the nerfs the TEC-9 and the EM2 have already got, but this is the first major nerf for the Marshal pistol.

This comes as great news for fans because these guns have dominated the game's meta since they came out more so than most other guns added to Cold War. The TEC-9 remains a best-in-class SMG, but the EM2 is significantly less powerful than it once was. The Marshall is devastating up close, but it's less effective at range and at taking down multiple enemies in quick succession.

So, what was nerfed, exactly? The EM2's maximum damage was reduced from 48 to 42, though this usually won't change the shots required to kill, and more importantly, vertical recoil on the first bullet fired has been increased. The gun now deletes people a little more slowly and isn't as much of a laser. Plus, its Task Force Barrel attachment has lost its 7% fire rate penalty in exchange for a 10% increase in horizontal recoil, to compensate for the base weapon's nerfs.

The TEC-9 got some mobility nerfs. Its ADS speed was slightly decreased as was its sprint to fire speed and weapon swap speed. They're all slight slowdowns, but all told, the gun will be a little less snappy. On top of that, the Burst Fire Repeater Muzzle attachment's range penalty was increased from 15% to 30%.

Lastly, the Marshal's maximum damage range was cut from 5.08m down to 3.81m, while its firing speed was also reduced slightly. When using the Dragon's Breath attachment, the damage penalty has been increased from 8% to 25%, and bonus damage given by Dragon's Breath has been reduced at distances beyond 6.66m.

While this is all encouraging news, the Marshal nerf isn't as game-changing as you might think, because the biggest problem players have with the weapon is when it's run akimbo, which will be less effective given these new changes but is still almost impossible to deal with up close.

Ultimately, these are all long overdue, sensible nerfs, if not everything players were asking for, and while many expected these nerfs to come much closer to the launch of these weapons, now they feel a lot less unfair in Season 6, even if they're still excellent loadout choices.

The other major additions to Season 6, so far, are three new maps, Gluboko, Amerika, and Deprogram, as well as two new weapons, the .410 Ironhide and the Grav, with the SMG the LAPA to come later during the Haunting Event.

The Ironhide shotgun is a good weapon, taking people down with one blast up close and two blasts further away, but luckily, unlike the similar-looking Model 1887s in Modern Warfare 2, this gun can't be run akimbo. Ultimately, it doesn't seem like it'll dominate the meta in a toxic way.

The same can be said for the Grav assault rifle. This rifle has the best-in-class bullet velocity for an AR, and it has a fast fire rate, but its recoil is fairly beastly, so it feels much more mid-tier, not too different from the FFAR. Since it's new and not a terrible weapon, it'll likely see some use, but there aren't any indications it will be as dominant as the EM2 was in Season 5.

It may be exciting when extremely powerful guns are added to the game, but amazing weapons aren't worth everybody having lasers that delete people instantly, so Season 6 is doing a pretty good job of not just not breaking the game but balancing out the broken stuff in the game.

As for maps, Deprogram brings with it portals that allow you to instantly teleport to a power position, but there are a ton of ways to take people out of there so it isn't too frustrating. Portals are a new thing for Call of Duty, so the map is feeling fresh to a lot of players, and as a small-to-medium map with a decent amount of sightlines, not too much cover, and opportunity for a decent variety of playstyles, most are happy with the addition.

Gluboko, the new gunfight map, is about as small and intense as ICBM, but it's longer and narrower and has more vertical space than other Gunfight maps. The 3v3 Gunfight 24/7 playlist it launched with feels like an appropriate mode for the map, while playing it on 6v6 Face Off is always chaotic and sometimes frustrating. If you like playing on the Gunfight maps, Gluboko may not be a standout but it probably won't be a skip, either.

The last added map, Amerika, is bright, colorful, and mid-sized so as to allow for another good variety of playstyles, with most enjoying the map who've played it. Unfortunately, though it launched with Season 6, it does not have a dedicated playlist, so many haven't played it, played it much, or even know another map on top of Gluboko and Deprogram, which both have 24/7 playlists, was even added.

Season 6 in general continues to bring confusing playlist choices to Cold War. The most popular map and mode in the game, Nuketown 24/7, was once again removed and replaced with Nukejacked, a playlist featuring both Nuke and Hijacked, a significantly less popular map. One of the other most popular modes in the game right now, Demolition, is also restricted to around half the game's maps and doesn't include either new 6v6 map.

Beloved Party Games like One in the Chamber are still absent, and fan-favorite modes like 3v3 Snipers or Knife Fights continue to come and go seemingly without reason. To most players, it doesn't feel like playlists necessarily reflect what fans most want to play but rather what Treyarch is willing to allow them to play.

While Season 6 content is largely being pretty well received, it does seem like there are surprises in store to come for the season, too. Considering we got five maps in Season 5 and only three have been announced for Season 6, more maps are rumored to be coming, and how Amerika was added without its own 24/7 playlist at the beginning of Season 6 alongside other new maps, maybe we'll be seeing surprise drops of remastered maps sometime during Season 6. Until then, Cold War fans can rest easy knowing this Season 6 adds new, interesting stuff without breaking too much else.

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