Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 Tips For Surviving (And Thriving) In Multiplayer

A new year of Call of Duty is here. Black Ops 6 launches with 16 brand-new multiplayer maps, 33 weapons to unlock and level up, and Treyarch’s new omnimovement system. If you’re a new or returning player, this year’s multiplayer might feel a bit overwhelming with the major movement changes. Here we provide some of the best tips to help you score wins across all game modes in Black Ops 6.

Practice your omnimovement skills

Black Ops 6 might be a boots-on-the-ground game, but this is the most advanced movement system since the jetpack era of Call of Duty. Thankfully, you can hop into the training course (Found in the multiplayer menu) at any time to learn the basics for using omni-directional movement, as well as further practice and improve your skills.

Adjust your settings

Black Ops 6 comes with more customization and accessibility settings than Call of Duty has ever had before. This includes the game’s new Intelligent Movement customization system. These are optional game settings, but they allow you to customize a lot of basic movements, such as turning on settings for tactical sprint assist and removing the sprint delay, reducing the number of button presses needed to perform certain actions. These make the movement feel ever faster and more fluid, but it also means less input on the thumbsticks, thus it should feel easier on your hands.

Additionally, some of Black Ops 6’s default visual settings aren’t great for multiplayer. Turning off things like motion blur, film grain, and depth of field will greatly help with visibility.

There are accessibility features for those who suffer from Tinnitus, hearing loss, visual impairments, and even an arachnophobia setting to alter the spider-like enemies in Zombies mode.

If you’re on console, we have a recommended settings guide for getting the most out of Black Ops 6 on PlayStation or Xbox consoles.

Listen and communicate

You’ll want to use a headset when possible. A headset provides you with better audio quality for increased map awareness, allowing you to hear enemy footsteps better and pinpoint their positioning.

Having a headset with a mic is recommended for communicating with teammates, which is especially important when you’re playing objective-based modes. However, if you don’t want to talk to others online, Call of Duty does feature a decent ping system with the D-pad. This lets you ping enemies and important map locations to provide your team with some basic intel.

Party up

Even longtime Call of Duty players can have trouble carrying randoms to victory, especially if no one is playing the objective or providing intel. Try to party up with at least one or two friends to give yourself better odds of winning matches–or at least have a better time going down in flames with your pals.

Build custom loadouts

Weapon customization is easier than ever in Black Ops 6. Now, once you start leveling up and unlocking your attachments, you can customize weapon builds that will save across all modes. Treyarch calls these “global weapon builds.”

This means your favorite gun builds in multiplayer will be available for use in Zombies and Warzone (once Black Ops 6 integrates with battle royale in Season 1) without you having to rebuild that weapon for the other modes.

Here, we list some recommended weapon builds to get you started in Black Ops 6 multiplayer. You can find perk and Wildcard recommendations here.

Choose scorestreaks wisely

Unlike the last two years, Black Ops 6 only features scorestreaks and not killstreaks. This means you don’t get punished for dying, and instead you’re rewarded for being a team player. You do earn score for getting kills, but you’re also rewarded for helpful actions, such as capturing and defending objective points, calling in UAVs, and using support equipment.

If you’re a player who struggles to get kills, or if you’re just looking to level up a bit faster, you can earn quite a bit of score and XP for using non-lethal streaks, such as UAVs, Counter-UAVs, and the HARP(Advanced UAV streak).

Alternatively, the Chopper Gunner and Dreadnought lethal streaks can be a lot of fun if you’re a more aggressive and kill-hunger player.

Maximize your XP

Black Ops 6 brings back the classic Prestige system, and there are a lot of great rewards you can unlock for leveling up and hitting various Prestige milestones. This includes some really sweet looking operator skins, calling cards, emblems, and more. You can find full details about player progression and the Prestige system here.

If you’re looking to level up and Prestige fast, make sure to play objective modes. Team Deathmatch won’t offer you as much XP gains as playing Capture the Flag or even Kill Confirmed.

Running support streaks also earns you a fair amount of XP. This includes using UAVs, Counter-UAVs, and HARP (Advanced UAV) streaks. Equipping the Dispatcher and Bankroll perks will help you earn even more of these streaks to maximize your XP gains.

Complete your daily challenges and unlock some camos to earn even more XP. If you’re a completionist or just want some pretty camos, here is our full guide for the Black Ops 6 Mastery camo grind.