It wouldn’t be Call of Duty season if there weren’t complaints about something being pay-to-win, and in the case of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, it seems it’s “pay-to-win audio” that’s the problem this time. A new partnership between Black Ops 6 and the third-party audio company, Embody, raised concerns this week within the Call of Duty community after custom audio profiles were spotted with a price tag attached. The fact that audio features were being sold in any capacity in a series where audio is so often the difference between a killstreak and a death caused players to cry foul, but the response so far seems to be an overreaction.
Embody is a company that specializes in spatial audio, a term which even non-audiophiles should’ve heard of by now since it’s present in so many games. Games like Alan Wake 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and countless others including a ton of Call of Duty games support spatial audio, so that’s nothing new even if Embody isn’t a name that Call of Duty players have heard as much as another company like Dolby with its Dolby Atmos audio tech.
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In a Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 blog post talking all about audio, Activision acknowledged a partnership with Embody that’ll utilize its spatial audio and Head Related Transfer Function tech to boost players’ audio experiences. Game-specific audio profiles are also pretty common regardless of what audio company’s making them, so again, Black Ops 6 having that is nothing new.
“Enhanced Headphone Mode makes use of Embody’s Immerse Spatial Audio technology to increase the directional accuracy of sounds played in the world,” Activision’s Black Ops 6 blog explained. “Immerse Spatial Audio is compatible with any headphone or earbud model and greatly improves the player’s spatial audio experience. Included as part of the game’s Enhanced Headphone Mode, is a Universal HRTF profile which has been specifically created for the Call of Duty soundscape.”
So if you’re using headphones in Black Ops 6, anyone is able to use the Universal HRTF profile free of charge. What players are taking issue with is the “Personalized Profile” option that uses spatial sound “customized to your unique physiology,” so a profile designed around your own ears essentially. That option costs $20, but you can try it for free for 30 days as well.
While your personalized, $20 audio profile may make Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 sound a bit better than the base spatial audio support that’s universal for everyone via Embody, it’s almost certainly not going to make a massive difference in terms of gameplay, and certainly not enough that it could be called pay-to-win. The more important part of this Embody partnership is the spatial audio itself which everyone will have access to
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s Enhanced Headphone Mode will be available right away when the game releases this week and will come to Call of Duty: Warzone during Season 1 as well.