Aside from its high-octane multiplayer and Zombies experiences, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 belongs to a sub-franchise that has always impressed fans with its mind-bending single-player narratives and themes. The wider Black Ops franchise has never shied away from intertwining its stories and characters with real-world events and people, giving an edge to its campaigns that has always shined within the wider context of Call of Duty.
Alongside its new characters and factions, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has the huge benefit of being able to pull from its previous five mainline titles for its single-player story, with the original Black Ops, Black Ops 2, and Black Ops Cold War shaping a huge amount of the recently released title's narrative. One of the stars of the game is franchise veteran Frank Woods, who has had a long and storied presence at the forefront of the Black Ops series' overall story. While Woods has always been a fan-favorite figure across all of Call of Duty, Black Ops 6 opens up a level of depth to Woods that further proves he is an all-time character for the longstanding IP.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Features Surprise Nod to Older Games
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players discover a classic feature from older games in the franchise that can be very easy to miss.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Takes Frank Woods to Another Level
Frank Woods has been a huge part of the Black Ops franchise ever since its first release in 2010, fighting alongside the game's protagonist Alex Mason throughout the Vietnam War and a range of secret government operations. Woods would later appear as the deuteragonist of Black Ops 2, cementing him as one of the most important and largely focused figures of the main Black Ops storyline.
Throughout the games, Woods is renowned for his mental and physical resilience, having spent over six months in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp and being at the heart of the Black Ops franchise's most explosive events. Despite the massive level of trauma and combat that Woods has seen throughout these titles, he remained a second-to-none field operative, completely dedicated to whatever mission was at hand.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 takes place after the events of Black Ops 2 and Cold War, with the title boldly choosing to canonize elements of Black Ops 2's branching narrative that puts an entirely new spin on Woods' character. The most glaring example of this is how Black Ops 6 makes it official that Woods was the one to assassinate his longtime friend and teammate Alex Mason, with the true identity of the hooded Mason being unknown to Woods at the time.
Black Ops 6 Gives a New Direction to Woods' Later Life
This offers a clear avenue for guilt and regret that is now a core part of Woods' character as an older man, with the injuries that Woods sustained following the killing of Mason also leaving him in permanent need of a wheelchair. In Black Ops 6, we see Woods having to wrestle with the emotional and physical trauma that these past events have caused, with Woods being pulled off of the front-lines into an intelligence-based role instead.
As a man who had spent his entire military career in firm control of the plots unfolding around him, seeing Woods much more reliant on the work of others opens up a fresh aspect of his character, with the canonized guilt of Mason's death giving even more depth to him than ever before. Despite these setbacks, Woods still possesses the same grit, gallows humor, and determination that fans revere him for, making Black Ops 6 an excellent way to flesh out the already excellent personality and mindset of such an iconic character.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83 /100 Critics Rec: 91%
- Released
- October 25, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Suggestive Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Treyarch, Raven Software
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
- Engine
- IW 9.0
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- Yes - PlayStation, Xbox, PC
WHERE TO PLAY
- Cross Save
- Yes - PlayStation, Xbox, PC
- Prequel(s)
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: World at War
- Franchise
- Call of Duty
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- October 25, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- October 25, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- October 25, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC
- Genre(s)
- FPS
- How Long To Beat
- 8 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 216 GB (October 2024)
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
