With Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now a week old, fans of the Multiplayer portion of the game are having their say on the controversial — and unskippable — Winner’s Circle feature.
The Winner’s Circle shows the top three performing players from the winning team after the Play of the Game has run its course. Under normal circumstances it lets each player who does well enough to appear on the podium perform an emote, most of which are either toxic or hilarious depending on your point of view.
Black Ops 6 isn’t the first Call of Duty to feature The Winner’s Circle mechanic, as it’s appeared in the likes of Black Ops 3, Infinite Warfare, and WWII. But it’s impact feels particularly pronounced this year, and the debate around it was only exacerbated by the recent release of fan-favorite map Nuketown, which in addition to the Play of the Game and the Winner’s Circle, shows a short cutscene of the map getting nuked before players return to the lobby.
There are a number of issues players have brought up with Black Ops 6’s Winner’s Circle. The main one is the time it takes to view: players have to sit through the Winner’s Circle whether they make the cut or not, and the handful of seconds it lasts can feel like an age when all you want to do is get into another match or check your loadout. Because of this, some players have called on Treyarch to add a skip button or even pull the Winner's Circle from the game entirely.
Then there’s the issue of toxicity, with some saying the ability to taunt your opponent after a victory discourages them from continuing to play having just lost a game. The slow camera zoom into the top player's face doesn't help matters.
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Treyarch actually nerfed the Winner’s Circle following feedback from the Black Ops 6 beta so it had a shorter overall duration and “mitigated emote spam” for launch. During those preview weekends, players were able to spam emotes in the Winner’s Circle, which was certainly more frustrating to watch. Currently, you’re only able to trigger one emote. Or at least, you’re only supposed to be able to trigger one emote.
Players have worked out that they can still spam emotes here by quickly pausing and unpausing the game. Doing this, they’re able to fit in a few emotes into the Winner’s Circle before it closes, which, yeah, is pretty annoying to watch.
But! If you’re sick of watching the shenanigans that go on in the Winner’s Circle, players have worked out they can make the player avatars disappear by heading to the in-game social tab. This doesn’t make the Winner’s Circle go away any quicker, but it does get rid of the emotes, if you’re feeling particularly put out by them. It’s a bizarre glitch that Treyarch will probably patch out at some point.
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It’s been interesting to see how players have reacted to the Winner’s Circle since Black Ops 6’s explosive launch. Some have said they don’t mind it, given it provides them with a bit of time to check their phone before being thrust into the next match (modern gaming!). Others really, really hate it, and want to skip it at all costs. “Goofy” is a word I’ve seen tossed about by many in response to these emotes.
Despite the ongoing debate about Black Ops 6’s Winner’s Circle, it seems unlikely that Treyarch will strip it out of the game or even let players skip it. It provides an opportunity to show off players’ elaborate and often costly cosmetics, including premium emotes, to all players still in the lobby — and we all know how crucial cosmetics sales are to Activision’s bottom line.
If you’re jumping into Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer, check out our Essential Multiplayer Tips and Tricks to help you get started. We’ve also got a full weapons list, a guide to all multiplayer maps and game modes, and details on how to unlock all Black Ops 6 operators.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
