The Black Ops franchise has captivated audiences for years, delivering thrilling stories over more than a decade of game releases. Regardless of whether each individual item hits the target or not, Treyarch aiming for the moon with each release, always trying to produce a more compelling story time after time.

Early fan reviews suggest that the iconic developer has outdone themselves this time around. So far, plenty of praise has been thrown around. In fact, one particular late game quest has been credited with raising Black Ops 6 campaign into a whole new stratosphere.

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The mission is called Emergence, and it’s unlike anything else in Call of Duty. Without giving away any of its secrets, we’ll just say that the story changes tone, takes a major turn, and delivers an absolute sucker punch in the player’s direction.

This is the kind of thing you’ll want to play for yourself, so there are no spoilers ahead, just a quick look at the kind of praise this mission is garnering in the wee hours of release.

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“Just finished what I consider to be the best Call of Duty campaign mission of all time,” ModernWarzone tweeted. “You’ll know what mission I’m talking about when you get there and you’ll definitely want to experience it for yourself. Bravo (,) Raven Software. ‘Emergence’ is your best work yet.”

“No spoilers but man is it phenomenal. I recommend the campaign for that mission alone. The campaign was amazing. The whole dev team deserves their flowers for that mission alone,” a Reddit user said.

Another fan fueled the campaign as a whole, but also cited Emergence as the highlight of the experience. “This is a Top 3 COD campaign. Case is a Top 3 protagonist. Emergence is the best COD mission of all time! We trust Treyarch.”

Hype has started to spread elsewhere on the internet as well, with more than one Reddit user warning fans that they are “not ready” for what lies ahead at this level, and many similar threads popping up by the minute.

This kind of success is a timely arrival for Call of Duty fans. Modern Warfare 3 (2023)’s campaign received massive criticism upon release, both for being far too short for a standard Call of Duty experience, but also for switching to a Warzone-inspired open combat system for much of its runtime.

In that way Black Ops 6 is a step back into Call of Duty tradition. Missions are once again a carefully guided experience that allows players to creatively solve their problems, but without the open world elements that plagued MW3s reception. This is what allows Emergence to shine. Treyarch maintains control over pacing all the way through. Every turn is carefully calculated, and you can feel it every second you are in the game.

If you’ve been thinking about skipping the campaign this year, this might be your sign to give it a shot. If nothing else, you’ll experience perhaps the most memorable Call of Duty mission since Modern warfare (2007) ‘All Ghillied Up’.