GamesFPSCall of DutyCall of Duty: Black Ops 6What exactly is up with Black Ops 6’s ‘Enhanced Headphone Mode’ and its $20 paid tierWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesFPSCall of DutyCall of Duty: Black Ops 6What exactly is up with Black Ops 6’s ‘Enhanced Headphone Mode’ and its $20 paid tierWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Treyarch)
The first thing you realize after playing a competitive FPS with headphones on is that you should never play a competitive FPSwithoutheadphones on. All games sound best with your ears squeezed between a nice pair of speakers, but in shooters, the ability to isolate background noise and pick out the direction of footsteps, callouts, and gunshots can literally make you a better player.
That relationship between skill and sound is the only reason I read an entireblog post dedicated to audioin Black Ops 6, and why I’m raising an ear-brow at a new “Enhanced Headphone Mode” that promises to maximize audio clarity for those willing to part with an extra $20.
Some important details: This isn’t an in-house Treyarch feature, but a partnership withEmbody, a company whose whole deal is creating “personalized spatial audio” profiles for games using AI. The outfit also offers profiles for Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy 14, but this is the first time its tech has been applied to a competitive shooter.
The Embody site description of the Enhanced Headphone Mode.(Image credit: Embody)
While Black Ops 6 will include a free-to-use “universal” spatial audio profile, the personalized HRTF feature, which Embody promises will take your audio to the “next level”, requires a $20 subscription that lasts five years after a 30-day trial period.
So yes, you can technically pay for a better(?) audio processing experience in Black Ops 6, though I’m not ready to call this “pay-to-win” audio just yet. For one, it sounds like a lot of hoopla for marginal improvements. The most crucial audio information in Call of Duty games (gunshots, footsteps) is pretty readable with a default headphone setup already, so I’m not convinced an extra layer of 3D processing will significantly speed up my reaction time to sounds.
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