Call of Duty fans slam ‘nonsense’ Black Ops 6 requirements

The CoDverse is back in a big way, and after a few years of middling Call of Duty titles, 2024's Black Ops 6 looks like it'll be worth the wait as a proper Black Ops Cold War sequel. June 9's Xbox showcase promised it would have a cavalcade of CoD news, and while it lived up to that hype, it's come at a cost. 

The showcase gave us our first look at multiplayer, showed off new characters, revealed the new Omnimovement system, and confirmed the return of round-based Zombies. Unfortunately, Activision buried Black Ops 6's always-online requirements deep in the briefing.

Black Ops 6 says goodbye to couch play

Click to enlarge

In the packed Black Ops 6 blog post there's a small mention that the game uses "texture streaming across all game modes." Confirming what we feared, Activision wrote, "This means you'll need a continuous internet connection to play any game mode, including Campaign."

It's a common theme of modern games requiring a constant internet connection, with the likes of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Diablo IV being called out for these requirements even if you want to play solo. The issue is that if the server ever goes offline then so does the game...forever.

The publisher is still trying to defend its actions, claiming that Black Ops 6 always being online will support "the highest-quality visuals" and also help in "reducing the game's overall storage space on your hard drive." Given that CoD games are some of the chunkiest around, the latter part can only be a good thing, but still, players aren't happy. 

Call of Duty fans respond to 'nonsense' always online requirements

When the news was shared on Reddit, one disgruntled gamer called it "Absolute nonsense," adding, "If they're gonna stream you higher res textures with an internet connection anyways, there's no reason they can't just do that as planned so anybody with a connection gets that, but then have super low res textures for the base install/disc that's usable offline, since that's still better then not being able to play.

"And/or they could just make downloading the higher res textures for local/offline play an option. This is just anti-consumerism, and in a just world would be liable for a planned obsolescence lawsuit. And hell, the multiplayer should be playable offline too, even if it's you loading into an empty map or just LAN play."

Another added, "COD 😣 $80 🤢 Always online 🤮," while a third said, "I'm not okay with forced texture streaming. That's going to cause a lot of jank with people who don't have the highest internet bandwidth or are on wi-fi."

It's not likely to change, as someone else rightly concluded, "Truth is it's Call of Duty. People do not care, they will buy that sh*t in a heartbeat for eternity. Just like FIFA and GTA. They can f**k up, and be horrifically sh*tty all they want, but their fanbase is so f**king strong they literally cannot fail."

We're reminded of when Microsoft was dragged for this exact issue back at E3 2013, with critics branding it 'Orwellian' back then. It doesn't look like it's a problem anymore, with Black Ops 6 currently being the No. 1 seller on Steam's preorders. Then again, campaign has never been the mainstay mode for most Call of Duty players.