Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s teaser trailer sure loves the 1990s

Straight up, there isn’t a frame of gameplay from Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, in the official teaser trailer Treyarch and Activision released on Monday (Memorial Day, no less). It’s still a bananas, paranoid tour of the deep state, laced with all kinds of 1990s references for those who have great affection for that decade of peace and prosperity. I know I do; I graduated both high school and college that decade.

So, let’s see, we’ve got Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Al Gore, Dan Quayle, George Bush the elder, Saddam Hussein, Chia Pets, Professional Bull Riders (founded 1992, for the record), McMansions galore, and a fake Friends-style dramedy called “Frank’s Woods” which is plainly a reference to Black Ops’ founding protagonist. All we need from here is Blockbuster Video and your Mom bringing home a Pizza Hut Big New Yorker (a product conceived by former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime, by the way).

The Black Ops line of Call of Duty games have always gotten the showier marketing pieces over the years, mainly because everyone loves a good old-fashioned conspiracy theory. Though most folks buy Call of Duty for the multiplayer, and surely will for this game, the nostalgic touches and period references have always made Black Ops’ single-player campaigns worth a playthrough.

That’s why it was such a crime that Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (2018) had no campaign. Treyarch, the lead developer of the sub-series, learned its lesson and came back with a proper campaign for 2020’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, returning the series to the absolutely fabulous 1980s after two editions set in the future. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 therefore continues that storyline, just in a decade we haven’t yet explored.

Call of Duty Black Ops 6 was formally announced May 23; rumor and speculation for months had suggested Treyarch would take the game to the Gulf War era. The game will have a dedicated deep-dive livestream after the Xbox Games Showcase on June 9, 2024, starting at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST. The game’s release date has not yet been announced, but when it arrives, it will launch on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X — and, as reported by CharlieIntel, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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