Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched not so long ago to much fanfare and lauding from the community. From the Campaign and Multiplayer (MP), to the return of round-based Zombies, it seems that Call of Duty is truly back, and people are loving it. I’ve only been playing the multiplayer so far, and I have to say it is really fun; it feels great to play, with varied maps, and engaging game modes. In fact, I’ve managed to prestige twice so far (thanks double XP weekend), and I’m trying to unlock a Diamond skin for my favourite assault rifle (there is an achievement tied to it, after all).

That being said, there’s a lot to get your head around. If anyone reading this is touching “Elder Millenial” status like myself (I’m a year out so sayeth Google), or even just new to the franchise entirely, then Call of Duty's multiplayer might seem a bit of a daunting prospect. Lots of people will be jumping into the series for the first time, thanks to the Game Pass effect, or returning after a fairly significant break (like myself), so seeing some of the gameplay / clips that float around where it’s just a blur or colour and shooting might put you off.

Fear ye not! Through my time with Black Ops 6 thus far, I got to thinking of all the strategies I was employing to do pretty well in Black Ops 6 super fun multiplayer, and thought I’d share that. Some of this may well be common sense to some of you, sure, but hopefully you find some tips and tricks useful. And I’m not doing bad myself, check out some play of the games from my time with the game so far.

Ahead of Season 1 of Black Ops 6 multiplayer beginning this week, dive on in to some top tips to dominating the battlefield.

Death is Only the Beginning

Ok, let’s get this out of the way, right off the bat, you’re going to die in MP, a lot. Yes, it can be frustrating, and you’ll sometimes won’t have time to get your bearings before your head is blown clean off again, but the sooner you come to except that death is going to happen, the quicker we can learn to evolve and adapt.

It wasn’t even my play of the game and I ended up dying twice to the same guy!!!!

Know Your Surroundings

This only comes with time and experience, but paying attention to the maps and where things are (including the best routes to different areas of the map) will make all the difference. Particularly if you are on any objective based game modes and need to get to the current / next objective ASAP. Plus, if you know where you died, you can head back there and look for that villainous heathen who took you out!!

Knowing the maps and where objectives are and such is incredibly helpful for more tactical assaults too. Getting a cheeky wall-bounce on a grenade that results in a kill is just *chef’s kiss.

Advantage…You

Of course, knowing your surroundings will give you the advantage in knowing where the best places to position yourself are, particularly if your enemies aren’t as au fait with the map. Take advantage of this and destroy!!!!!

“Are you Following Me?”

Something I noticed fairly quickly is that some people love to circle the map. You’ll get killed at a spawn point, and then as soon as you spawn again, that same person may well be bearing down on you to finish you off again (something that does happen if he catches you unawares). If you anticipate that this might well happen, particularly on the smaller maps, then you can be ready for anything! The spawning can be a bit erratic so keep an eye out.

HUDs Up

Your HUD is incredibly useful for a whole load of reasons, and we go into some good detail in our Multiplayer Basics article, but here one of the key things to keep an eye on is your hit markers and grenade warning indicators.

If your shooting, you’ll get a little white cross appear as you make hits. This will change to double lined crosses if you get a headshot (check the video below). However, it can be easy to gauge incorrectly if you’ve finished off your target. You’ll know if they’re dead when you get a “+100 Elimination”, or a red cross if you make the kill, appear on your screen, unless you see that, assume your target is still alive.

You’ll get that “+100 Elimination” pop up if you’ve contributed to the kill, not always if you make the kill yourself.

Also, you are in the range of a grenade or explosive that is about to go off, a red grenade shaped indicator will appear. If you can see it, you’re likely close enough to it to take damage. This will appear if you’re close but behind cover, so bear in mind your surroundings, you can avoid grenade damage if behind a wall and such.

Keep an eye out for player names appearing too, if you see a red name (default colour) then you can perhaps see a hiding enemy!!

Let Him Cook

I am a big advocate of grenades, and grenade cookery. No that’s not some explosive new TV show I’ve concocted (makes note about explosive TV show idea*), but the act of shortening the fuse on your grenade so your intended targets have less time to get out of the way of it.

This is quite a satisfying kill too, particularly if you’re blind firing it to where you’re anticipating enemies are going to be (again, huge advocate of thinking strategically with this).

Play the Objective

For all that is good and holy, play the objective. Not only will this help your win / loss ratio, but the objective based games are great for kills, point scoring and XP to level up both your player and weapon levels! I prefer the objective based games over straight deathmatches anyhow. If there are particular modes you’re not a fan of, you can edit them out of your searching playlist too.

If you’re playing the objective, it can guide you to where you’d expect enemies to be too. If your objective marker in Domination, Headquarters, or Hardpoint are ‘red’ coloured (by default, you can change these in your settings), then there’s an enemy lurking somewhere in the objective space. Just approach cautiously and think where they might be hiding (in, on, behind something), or quite often laying on the floor, or in a corner, again, grenades / lethal equipment are your friend.

And don’t forget, as Justin9000 of Gamer Social Club community pointed out, playing the objective counts towards you building your scorestreak (remember, your streaks are based on scores not kills).

Also, snapping to cover (click the right stick, if on controller) is really great if you’re peeking round corners and defending an objective, just make sure you’re keeping behind cover when reloading.

“I Wouldn’t Stop Movin’ If I Could!”

Keep on the go, unless you’re holding an objective of course. Staying stagnant in the map makes you a target, unless you’ve got yourself covered and well defended (which is tricky). When you die, you get a death cam showing how you died, but so does your enemy when you kill them. They know where you were when you killed them, so they might come back seeking revenge. Don’t hang about, or at least anticipate that retribution and be prepared! Plus you never know what you might come across if you keep moving (if someone is using the care package scorestreak, you might be able to pinch it!).

Shoot the Cover, Shoot, Shoot the Cover

Don’t forget you can shoot through a large amount of the environment. Obviously you can’t shoot through thick walls and such, but if someone is hiding behind a door or thin cover, keep firing, damage is reduced, but you might well finish them off.

Some of the weapon mods you can attach to your gun increase ‘bullet penetration’ meaning your bullets do more damage, or at least less damage is reduced when shooting through cover.

“I Hear Ya, I Hear Ya…”

Pay attention to the sound cues in the game. The audio is well done in Black Ops 6, and the voice lines of you and your comrades give clues as to something you might not have clocked. Quite often I’ve been barreling ahead and heard my character shout “spotted an enemy” that might not be entirely apparent on first glance, or when I’m running at full pelt.

They’re also useful for hearing when an enemy has called in a scorestreak too, so you know how to respond, or what to look out for (there are visual cues in the top right corner too, but I quite often miss these).

Use Your Scorestreaks

It can feel tempting to hold onto your scorestreaks for the perfect moment, and to be honest, that sometimes doesn’t occur. Just be wary that you can be vulnerable when activating your scorestreaks, so ensure you’re in a safe (ish) space to activate it, particularly things like a care package as your enemy could kill you and steal it from you.

And, of course, be sure to use your scorestreaks to help build your score towards the your more expensive, harder to obtain scorestreaks. UAVs and Counter UAVs are great for score building.

Play with Your Loadout (Not Like That)

Tinker and tamper, you unlock new attachments for your weapons at almost every level so it’s well worth experimenting, looking at your stats and see what you favour. I prefer more ammo in my clip, a scope and steadier aiming, whereas some people will love an increased mobility and better hipfire accuracy. Think about your playstyle, as well as the types of weapons you’re using. Don’t forget you can have multiple custom loadouts, so be sure to play around and try different stuff out (the daily challenges are a great excuse to give something different a go).

Also remember your perks and the Wildcards, I used to think ‘Overkill’ was the bee’s knees (two primary weapons), but more recently I’m favouring the ‘Gunfighter’ perk that lets you have up to eight attachments on your gun, instead of the standard five!

And that’s your lot, I’m not proclaiming to be a CoD master, but I hope these tips help you out, it certainly helps me out, and I think I’m doing pretty well thus far.

Have you got any golden nuggets to share to dominate the battlefield? Let us know.

All clips were captured on Xbox Series X.