Key Highlights:
- Call of Duty Black Ops 6 spent 4 years in development hell before being released as a mediocre title.
- Reportedly, Infinity Ward’s refusal to cooperate and incorporate feedback led to this disaster.
- Black Ops 6 was a complete failure.
It’s no secret that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has massively underperformed, bringing the series to a new low, at least in terms of player reception. Sales haven’t been too strong either, and there has been some lingering suspicion as to the same, mostly attributed toward worktime crunches and a generally poor quality of the game itself.
A recent series of leaks from a popular user has sparked further debate, with many pointing out toward Infinity Ward’s incompetency as the direct cause for the current state of Black Ops (and for Call of Duty in general).
Black Ops 6’s Failure Claimed To Be Directly Tied to Infinity Ward’s Incompetence
I’ve heard situations of IW just basically refusing to finish work on MWIII because “criticism hurt our feelings” lol so SHG had a lot to deal with. Doesn’t help either that IW just stopped working on a DMZ2 for MWIII that would’ve taken it out of beta and launched with a lot of…
— Hope (@TheGhostOfHope) February 2, 2026
As per X user TheGhostofHope (who specializes in Call of Duty content, including leaks), it was Infinity Ward’s own incompetence in handling the Call of Duty IP that directly led to the creation of MWZ as well as the cancellation of the Outbreak mode for Black Ops 6: Zombies.
Additionally, Infinity Ward has reportedly refused to work on Modern Warfare III, delaying it even further and transferring the mess on over to Sledgehammer Games, who also ‘had a lot to deal with’.
The disappearance of a DMZ 2 mode for MW3 was also alleged to be cancelled outright, with Treyarch instead jumping in to complete a MWZ on Urzikstan. Treyarch were also supposed to be saving Outbreak 2.0 for Black Ops 6 (alongside Liberty Falls), before it was ultimately canned from the retail launch.
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MWZ was also confirmed to be using a ton of pre existing assets from DMZ, and this rumor further substantives the claim, giving how ‘recycled’ the entire game modes appeared to be.
TheGhostofHope has been consistently spot on with their analysis on Call of Duty, and this information also seems to line up with a report from Bloomberg that took on the development of MW3.
Regardless, as these are unverified claims, it might be a good idea to take the information presented here with a grain of salt. No matter how you slice it though, there is no doubt that there was a huge degree of inconsistency and incompetency shown by Activision in the development of Black Ops 6, a game that managed to fall flat on its face.
Call Of Duty Needs To Go Back To The Drawing Board
Call of Duty as a franchise has most certainly seen some better days. The series initially started as a first person shooter set in the World War 2 era, before quickly achieving mainstream appeal and success with the release of the Modern Warfare series, set against present day events.
However, success quickly turned to slop as Call of Dut began to decline, as their pivot toward yearly releases which quickly removed all sense of reason (and quality control),
The series has had its reputation slip up pretty badly in the past few years, and we have no one but Activision’s greed to blame here. Call of Duty desperately needs to pull up its socks if it wants to stay afloat.
