Every year, Call of Duty fans spend months complaining about the fact that Ranked Play hasn’t launched with the game. While we don’t know for certain when it will be released in Black Ops 6, eagle-eyed CoD fans have already spotted it.
During the UI reveal at Call of Duty Direct, well-known leaker BobNetworkUK highlighted an image taken from the screen that shows Black Ops 6‘s main menu. In it, alongside multiplayer and Zombies, is a button for Ranked Play.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the mode will be live at launch, but the fact that they’ve baked it into the main menu from the start suggests it may be coming earlier than usual.
The release window of Ranked Play has been a real source of frustration among CoD fans, who have complained that waiting three months, or sometimes even longer, for the mode is far too long. MW3‘s competitive playlist dropped in January 2024, while players had to wait until February 2023 for MW2‘s version.
Ranked Play allows players to test their skills against opponents in curated maps and modes, based on what the professional players compete on in the Call of Duty League. Players are given a rank to demonstrate their ability and earn Skill Rating by winning matches. At the end of each season, players are awarded cosmetic items based on their performance.
With the mode spotted in early builds of the game, fans are hopeful that we’ll see Ranked Play in Season 1 of Black Ops 6, which usually drops a month after the game’s launch. This would allow players to jump in while the game’s population is at a high, and would likely see a second influx of competitors when the Christmas rush happens.
Of course, nothing is confirmed just yet, so we’ll just have to wait for Treyarch to provide some confirmation.
