Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Leak Reveals Callback to 2019’s Modern Warfare

Gameplay footage from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has revealed a helpful callback to a previous Call of Duty game, 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot. The footage was found in a large leak of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 gameplay that was uploaded online.

With dozens of releases under the Call of Duty franchise banner over the years, every studio developing a Call of Duty game has its work cut out for it. Developers must balance making a new game unique enough to distinguish itself from the increasingly large pack, but also retain the things people like not just about a particular Call of Duty subseries (such as the Black Ops line), but also about Call of Duty in general. Fans and casual players alike are constantly comparing new games to older ones, as well, and will likely judge Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 for how it honors past games as well as how it stands apart from its peers.

Now a series of leaks from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 appear to reveal that developer Treyarch will be using the Black Ops 6 user interface (UI) settings to pay a bit of homage to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the 2019 reboot of Call of Duty's most popular subseries. A post published by the CharlieIntel Twitter account showed that leaked Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 gameplay revealed that the game has a special heads-up display (HUD) preset simply titled "Modern Warfare" that rearranges the player's UI elements to closely resemble the way they looked in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The change will debut alongside other Black Ops 6 UI tweaks designed to improve the customizability and usability of the interface for players.

According to the CharlieIntel post, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Modern Warfare HUD preset will change the layout of the game's UI, changing the shape of the minimap to a square. Objective icons will also be visible and arranged along the compass, allowing players to find their way around the new Black Ops 6 maps. By comparison, previous Call of Duty: Black Ops series games have used a circular minimap, placing objective icons around the circle's border rather than on the compass to indicate their relative position. Modern Warfare is just one of several HUD presets in Black Ops 6, but it's the only one specifically evoking another Call of Duty title.

The additional UI customizability promoted by Black Ops 6 was greeted warmly by fans, who enjoyed the option of maintaining consistency between different Call of Duty titles for ease of use. Some expressed skepticism that Black Ops 6 would "feel" truly different from Modern Warfare given that they share similar game engines, calling the UI tweaks "cosmetic." Others reminisced about the fun they had with the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, hailing iconic missions like "Clean House" and others.