With just 20 eliminations left before my team tastes the bitterness of defeat, I find myself cowering behind a bookshelf on the second floor of an empty model home. It’s barely been a minute, but this is the longest I’ve managed to stay alive on Nuketown, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s newest map. Finding safety didn’t come easy — I did so by the skin of my teeth, dodging sniper fire and grenades being lobbed at my spawnpoint from across the map. And despite my modest personal win, the circumstances are still dire. I’m too pinned down to run back downstairs, too unskilled to dare peek out the window behind me. On the lower right side of my screen is an endless scroll of names being eliminated from both sides, a constant reminder of just how unprepared I am for my current situation.
I inch my way back toward the staircase that led me here, hoping to catch some unsuspecting and overly aggressive enemy off their game. Instead, I hear the distinct buzz of an RC car speeding up the stairs and toward my face. I can practically hear the driver chuckling at my desperate attempts at survival before they blow me to smithereens like a Looney Toon.
