Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is getting a week-long free trial in direct competition with Battlefield 6 release date
One last hurrah.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is getting a free trial for an entire week, starting 9th October. This free trial for last year's Call of Duty will provide access to the campaign, multiplayer, and zombies game modes - so interested players can play everything Blops currently has to offer.
This on its own would be some nice news for those looking for something to do during this month but with little money in their pocket right now, but an extra interesting layer to this free trial is that it's taking place during the Battlefield 6 release.
If this timing is intentional, it would mark the first case of marketing retaliation from Activision in the ongoing public scuffle between the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6. This scuffle started during the Battlefield 6 Multiplayer reveal, where the developers at Battlefield Studios weren't shy about their intentions to stick to sensible military cosmetics, rather than the gaudy out-of-universe skins available in CoD.
Following this discussion about wacky cosmetics' prevalence in Call of Duty entering the zeitgeist, Activision soon announced its intention to pull back a bit from its cosmetic approach in Black Ops 7.
Even so, EA continued to push this messaging in advertisements, bringing in celebrities to star in a recent Battlefield 6 live-action trailer in reference to Call of Duty's history of selling real-world figures as in-game skins. The trailer soon blows these celebrities up, with a squad of typical looking soldiers taking their place.
So the clash over public opinion has been rather one-sided so far, but dropping Black Ops 6 for free during the Battlefield 6 release date is a pretty solid way to strike back, especially given the fact that Black Ops 6 is at the tail end of its lifespan with Black Ops 7 set to launch next month.
For those who do decide to hop into Black Ops 6 during this free week, they'll be met with a collection of Halloween-themed events and cosmetics to get them into the festive mood. These will transfer over to Warzone but not to Black Ops 7 as part of that aforementioned decision to keep things visually coherent in the new game, so keep that in mind.