At last, Black Ops 6 is dropping the most hated weapon in CoD history

The full list of Black Ops 6 launch guns has been revealed, and it’s a relief to see that one of Call of Duty’s most controversial weapons has been abandoned.

Although each CoD multiplayer is handled by one of three main studios, the guns on offer always fall into pretty similar categories. You can expect versatile Assault Rifles for mid-range, SMGs to get up close and personal, and powerful snipers to pick off enemies from afar.

But another weapon has become a staple of the series, much to the community’s chagrin – the Riot Shield. This controversial primary takes the gun out of your loadout and replaces it with a large shield that can block incoming bullets and, in the right hands, make the user incredibly tough to kill.

Luckily, with Black Ops 6, Treyarch have continued their trend of leaving the Riot Shield by the wayside. On October 18, they revealed the slender lineup of launch weapons and it was nowhere to be seen.

Activision

This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given that the Riot Shield has only featured in one of Treyarch’s games (Black Ops 2), but it’s still a breath of fresh air after having to deal with corner campers and turtles for the last three years.

I’ve always felt that these shields are at odds with what makes Call of Duty special, and battling them in Vanguard, MW2, and MW3 has done little to change my mind. Not only do they slow the pace of matches down to a crawl if you come up against a skilled player, but there’s something deeply unsatisfying about being killed by one.

Yes, coming up against an impenetrable shield does force you to change your approach, as you need to either use an explosive or outmaneuver them to reveal a weak spot. But in a series where snappy gunplay and twitch reflexes have always been king, these walking blockades reward sitting in corners and catching enemies off guard instead of accuracy.

There are also those who put a Riot Shield on their back to cover them from behind, known as “turtling,” which cranks the frustration up even further. Players will often use Overkill to run another primary weapon while their rear is protected, removing any sense of risk-reward and punishing the enemy for flanking.

I’m not alone either, as virtually every Call of Duty to feature Riot Shields has been greeted with floods of social media posts calling for them to be removed or nerfed. So much so that when the news broke that they wouldn’t return in Black Ops 6, players were dancing in the virtual streets.

“No riot shield in CoD this year for the first time in three games. God is good,” said one X post, while another player posted: “I hope Riot Shields stays gone for the rest of BO6’s life cycle. We’ve been putting up with this BS for 3 years straight.”

Of course, there are also players who are disappointed to see the Riot Shield go, as many argue that using it effectively is a fine art and requires just as much skill as any other gun. While I understand it must be frustrating to see your go-to pick removed, considering that Black Ops 6 features more mobility than ever before, I dread to think how they’d dominate lobbies when paired with omnimovement.

It’s worth keeping in mind that there’s always a chance that the Riot Shield could make a comeback as a post-launch weapon, as new additions will be released with each seasonal update. However, given Treyarch’s tendency to ignore them in previous titles, it doesn’t look too promising.

Although there will always be defenders out there, Treyarch removing Riot Shields can only be a good thing for the flow of matches. There’s always room to add them as part of one-off events or limited-time modes, Black Ops 6’s core multiplayer is focusing on pure skill — and it’s going to be all the better for it.