It’s the most magical time of the year for Call of Duty fans, as another entry into the series is primed for release. It’s a notable one; the first officially since “the big acquisition” from Microsoft, and one that needs to earn back a bit of trust after a disappointing outing last year. Still, if one COD subseries is known for setting a high bar, it’s Black Ops, so the anticipation for Black Ops 6 is higher than ever.
We had the chance to sit down and have a chat with Miles Leslie, Associate Creative Director at Treyarch, who has worked on almost every single Call of Duty entry, way back on COD 2 on PC, porting to Linux (Google it, kids). I was stoked to talk with Miles about the big changes this year, the history of the series, and the weight of expectations.
Checkpoint Gaming: So it’s probably a big question, but I would love to know, what are the biggest things that you’ve learned since starting Black Ops and now here we are at Black Ops 6 so many years later? What are the big learnings?
Miles Leslie: Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s a hard question, so how dare you! Trying to summarise 16 years. But I think for me, what’s kept me so long in Call of Duty is that it’s a challenge every single time… We’ve got the best gunplay and feel in the world, and you know you have to keep that special and protected from game to game. But then how do you add the right ingredients to it? And I feel like with this team and bringing new people in, the core of it is we’ve found a way to do that. I think the challenge and what we’ve learned over time, even from World At War, is what’s the right way to do that, right? And that just comes with time and that comes with experience and it comes from asking the right questions within the team. A lot of it comes through iteration; and playtesting. “That’s not good enough”, right? Well, maybe we tweak this… and just constantly ask ourselves “Where do we want to go and how do we want to get there?” overall.
“…after Cold War, we really jumped into Black Ops 6, that’s been our focus. And for us, it was how to make the biggest, baddest and most exciting Black Ops game.”
From my perspective and for many of the community, Black Ops storytelling, in particular, is often championed as the best storytelling that COD has. You know, it’s sort of a bit more a bit more psychological, it’s a little bit more complex in many ways. Having worked on all of them, does that give you a sense that, you’ve got to show up with a really strong story every time?
Yeah, for sure. We take it seriously to really hit the fan’s expectations. That’s the minimum when we start. But then you have to go beyond that because if we gave them what they wanted, that’s like…” I’ve had that ice cream”, so we need to add the toppings and another flavour and a cone and a cherry. And I think it goes back to, that’s the really fun challenge game to game. I think stylistically we have a really cool style. We lean into as you said, the psychological and the really interesting side of this Black Ops world and what’s, I almost want to say “the invisible world”, what’s there and not there, and you can question it.
That’s a huge part whenever we start any Black Ops is, how do we hit the DNA and are we going to a place, era and setting and characters that gives us enough of that, that we’re going to have those character moments, new characters, locales, all the gadgets and tools. And then of course, ultimately, can it be fun in this environment as well? It’s always a fun challenge, 100%.
Last year’s COD, I think it is fair to say that fans may have been a little bit disappointed. There was a bit of a rush on the development side, there were some changes internally, and stuff like that. So with last year’s COD not having hit the way everyone wanted, what’s the expectation there? Is there a sense of earning back trust from players? I’m curious how you and the team are handling that.
Yeah, I think it’s an interesting question. I think we approach it as “what can we do right for Black Ops?”, and that’s our foremost really. How can we be intentional about that from the start? And yeah, we have sister studios that make Modern Warfare, and they’re killing it and they’re doing the best that they can. But after Cold War, we really jumped into Black Ops 6, that’s been our focus. And for us, it was how to make the biggest, baddest and most exciting Black Ops game. And that’s really what really the culmination of Black Ops 6 is.
You talk about expectations. I feel like, again, we had to hit our own expectations, right? And, and those are already high. I think sometimes players don’t think we’re hard on ourselves internally on this stuff because we know we need to surprise and delight. And again, it goes back to that raising the bar. What was important for us is Black Ops hasn’t been out for a little bit, since Cold War. How do we come as big and bad as possible and say “Black Ops is back, baby!”. If you’re not playing this, what are you doing? Come and have some fun. And I think we’ve got something special there.
COD itself has evolved so much since it started. I mean, it’s a whole universe, right? You’ve got the campaign, multiplayer, zombies, Warzone still ticking along in the background compared to what, Black Ops used to be or what COD used to be when you started. How does that feel today, now working on this giant mammoth of a series where there are all these different modes and all these players split across all of them?
It’s actually more exciting because what it means is that we can actually touch more players, right? We can reach out to them, these different types of players. And that’s where zombies came from, right? I remember World at War sitting in the bullpens and seeing it and playing it. And it was really fun. And that’s always been the heart of it; we want to give more fun things into the hands of the players.
And when it became a staple for us, that sort of “third mode”, Zombies, it was big enough that it could stand next to multiplayer and campaign and felt like that just completed the package. So it just made sense every game to continue to do that. But for us, it’s exciting because each one offers something really unique from the other, but they all sit within Black Ops in a way that just makes sense. They’re kind of in the same world and they’re selling the same stories in a different way.
Zombies is more fantastical and whimsical, right? And brutal in some sense. Then the campaign, you know, that’s where we can really get nitty and gritty conspiracies, this espionage. And then multiplayer is all about the fun, but immersing you in that world as well. I’m glad even since back at World at War that it resonated with fans, and we laugh sometimes that we get to come up with crazy ideas. And if we’re liking it, what’s really positive is fans are responding as well. That’s the key for us is; “OK, well, let’s keep doing that then.”
Nice – look, tell me about Zombies, because I will say the squad and I, when we’re playing COD, always come back to Zombies; it’s always really fun and we’ve always enjoyed it over the years. What are you most excited about for Zombies in this version of COD?
So I’m super excited about this. I have worked on Zombies and play Zombies; we have a dedicated crew. So if you’re an OG, that means you’re going to get more storytelling while you play Weaver, Carver, Grey and Maya, they’re going to be interacting with each other. It’s a big thing fans wanted. We wanted to bring it back. You can still pick any operator, but if you pick those four, you’re going to get a more immersive story, which is key for us.
And part of that was also welcoming new fans in, right? We want more Zombie fans. We want to convert them. Come in and join us in the horde. Then you’ve got really big unique map experiences. Terminus and Liberty Falls are very different from setting to gameplay, which is exciting. And then there’s the big thing on top of that, by the way, we’re just adding scoops of ice cream here, we have this thing called augments which allows you to upgrade perks and ammo mods and field upgrades. So when you talk about “I get to play zombies and then I can augment it and play it how I want to play even more”, it allows you to play how you wanted to play or how you thought you wanted to play. And that’s how you can just get into “What are we trying today?”
And then Omnimovement on top of that, which is game-wide. But you talk about combining Omnimovement, the third-person mode we have and PhD flopper. I mean, get out of here. That’s easy, easy fun all night long.
And with Omnimovement, I played the beta. It took me a little bit to get my head around it. How’s the response been to adding in this gameplay feature, so many years into what people know and love about COD already? What’s the response been from the community?
I mean, it’s been really positive overall. And I think the beta proved that there was a lot of, to your point, hesitation. You see it and you’re like, “Oh my God, I’m gonna have to be a pro player to be able to invent fingers to do all these things” and the team has taken really great care and been really intentional from day one. We have experience in movement. For example, the advanced movement, we did and even the guns up that we did in BO2; we know we can add in the right way that it doesn’t overshadow everything else. It’s additive to the experience and Omnimovement slots really nicely.
The community’s played it, they’ve seen it and hopefully, when they get their hands on it, it’s really there for you to master. That’s what I love about it, when you first play, if you’re like, “I’m not sure yet,” you just give it time, right? Maybe today I want to try some dives and tomorrow I want to try some slides. And now I’m going to do it in each way. And we’ve never had a sense of mastery where from day one to day, you know, weeks and hours that you’ve played, you could be doing something new and get a new skill. That’s really exciting for all types of players for us. I think Omnimovement allows that layer that we’ve never had before.
“…that’s what the world of Black Ops allows, that sort of flexibility to be a little stylised, feel like you’re an action hero, but it still feels believable and grounded.”
What I like about it too is it’s tactical, right? This is obviously really important for a game like COD where you’re constantly updating it and players are playing it for a very long time. But it also gives these action movie, water cooler moments where you’re in multiplayer and you see people just diving around or leaping from explosions or sliding into frame and getting you. How did you go about striking that balance where it’s tactical, but it’s also really bloody cool?
Yeah, 100%, you nailed it right there. We wanted players to feel like an action hero from day one. I think that’s what the world of Black Ops allows, that sort of flexibility to your point is to be a little stylised, feel like you’re an action hero, but it still feels believable and grounded. Like, of course, I can run in any direction and I can turn and twist because I’m a badass right? It took thousands of hours of play testing and tuning to get it to a point. And we know day one, as we’re monitoring it, as we’re playing with the community is “what’s right, what’s not right, and let’s tweak it”. We’ve had a really great relationship with the community in past games making it better and evolving with them. It was hard, but I think we’re in a great spot.
Lastly, are there any other big changes to Black Ops 6 that you think are going to have a ripple effect on COD in the future?
Omnimovement is the big one. I think we’re trying some other interesting things. I don’t think it’s as big, but I think it’s all these little ingredients. We’ve got the combat specialties, which are super interesting where you can select your loadout even more to your play style. If you’re a Slayer or you’re a run-and-gunner or you’re an Enforcer or you want to be more supportive or you can be Recon or strategic. So we’re really looking for opportunities to let you play how you want more. Then and then keep adding, you’ve got wild cards, and then you’ve got, global weapon builds, the list keeps going on and on.
And so, I hope that this is a nice quality-of-life change on top of “I can do what I want to do to play” that reduces some of the friction we’ve had in the past of, “Why can’t I?” Well, now you can. And I think we’ll learn from the community on that. But yeah, it’s exciting.
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PS5 and PS4 on October 25.
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
he/him
Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
