Black Ops 6 will require a constant internet connection—Even for campaign

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will require your PC or console to be connected to the internet at all times to use texture streaming, including when you’re playing the game’s Campaign mode which doesn’t feature any multiplayer elements.

This was confirmed on the official Activision website, with the section about the decision reading: “To deliver the highest-quality visuals while also reducing the game’s overall storage space on your hard drive, Black Ops 6 will use texture streaming across all game modes. This means you’ll need a continuous internet connection to play any game mode, including Campaign.”

This means that if your internet goes down, or you simply don’t have a connection at any time, you won’t be able to play Black Ops 6, even though the Campaign doesn’t feature multiplayer.

Texture streaming is a tool used in Call of Duty to provide extra detail and quality to the graphics of your game while attempting to keep the game’s file size as small as possible. Instead of bundling these graphics into the file to be installed on your computer, on-demand texture streaming downloads them via the internet while you’re playing.

Activision developed it to “reduce the game’s overall package size by removing certain textures rarely used or encountered by players. If players encounter an Operator or Weapon that uses a high-resolution texture, it will be streamed to the PC [or console’s] cache as needed.”

While this is massive for keeping our hard drives from filling up, it does mean that we’ll never be able to play the game without an internet connection. However, this trade-off is worth it for many players, and I’d be inclined to agree.

Black Ops 6 will be released on October 26 and will launch with two round-based Zombies maps and a traditional multiplayer prestige system.