As gaming continues to undergo rapid corporatization, some practices that haven’t sat well with players over the past few years have emerged. One is the early access for pre-orders, which grants players a few days’ head start in games. However, Black Ops 6<\/em> miraculously won’t have it.<\/p>
This was first reported by Charlie Intel on X (formerly Twitter) today, Sept. 10, providing an Activision representative’s statement in full. The representative apparently said the developers are “fully focused on Oct. 25,” adding that “this year, [they] have made the decision to ensure the community gets to dig into any and all modes that they want at the same time.” This means Call of Duty<\/a>‘s<\/em> next iteration will have no early access for pre-orders, unlike some of its predecessors, and will very much differ from most of the AAA market these past few years.<\/p>
While the Activision representative reportedly didn’t say the decision was made due to the developer’s commitment to the game, it might be that the company wished to avoid a negative reaction to potential early access. Just recently, Activision’s sister company Blizzard hopped on the early access trend with The War Within <\/em>expansion<\/a> for World of Warcraft<\/em>, allowing owners of the so-called Epic Edition to play the title much earlier than everyone else. Players generally reacted negatively, as WoW <\/em>never had such a clause on any of its expansions before.<\/p>
