Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 developer Treyarch has confirmed the multiplayer portion of the game ditches ‘streak looping’ — and in doing so has sparked a debate among fans.
In Treyarch’s Black Ops games, scorestreaks are obtained by gaining points from, for example, killing other players. Obtain enough points and you can call in a scorestreak. More effective scorestreaks cost more points. For example, in Black Ops Cold War, the Combat Bow cost 500 points. The Chopper Gunner, however, costs 8,000 points.
In Black Ops Cold War, Treyarch’s last Black Ops game, score carries over even after you die. But in the inaugural episode of the COD POD, Treyarch’s associate director of design Matt Scronce confirmed this system was ditched for Black Ops 6, which reverts to a more traditional scorestreak system in which score resets on death.
But perhaps the more significant change for Black Ops 6 is that it does not feature what are called ‘looping streaks.’ Looping streaks means you can continue to earn your streaks over and over again within the same life, if you don’t die. So, once you’ve earned your three streaks, you don’t have to die to reset them. You can continue to loop through them if you don’t die within the same life.
Scronce confirmed that in Black Ops 6, scorestreaks do not loop. His explanation is that this change, in combination with score resetting on death, helps avoid the ‘scorestreak spam’ some players hate in Call of Duty.
“We’re going back to a traditional scorestreak system,” Scronce said. “Score will reset on death. Right now scorestreaks do not loop. That was something we talked about quite a bit. Really the goal there is we want to reward players in a single life fairly, with high-end rewards, or low-end depending on your selection.
“But we really want to avoid scorestreak spam. That’s something I personally just really don’t like. I know a lot of players don’t like it.”
This confirmation has sparked a debate within the Call of Duty community about the rights and wrongs of streak looping. Some players, particularly high-skill players, do enjoy it because it helps them dominate a match.
The argument goes that ditching streak looping for Black Ops 6 artificially holds back high-skill players players from dominating a match because without looping streaks, once high-skill players earn their top streak, they may as well kill themselves so they can work towards earning it again. (Unless they’re going for a nuke, but that’s extremely rare.)
The counter-argument is that, as Scronce says, such a change helps avoid scorestreak spam, which can be extremely annoying to face in a match. There are all sorts of sub-arguments within this debate that get to the very heart of Call of Duty multiplayer. Do fewer streaks in a match make for a better or more boring experience? Should high-skill players be rewarded for their high-skill play at the expense of others?
We really want to avoid scorestreak spam. That’s something I personally just really don’t like. I know a lot of players don’t like it.
Treyarch has made its position clear, although the wording of Scronce’s statement (“right now scorestreaks do not loop”) suggests there may be wiggle room, depending on feedback. Speaking of feedback, we finally have the Call of Duty Black Ops 6 beta dates, set to arrive ahead of the game’s launch in October.
Black Ops 6 is the first mainline Call of Duty to launch straight into Xbox Game Pass, following Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. But the Game Pass tiers are getting more expensive and more complicated — with Black Ops 6 at the heart of the changes.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
