What really grinds my gears: Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's camo challenges

Anyone who has played a Call of Duty game in the last few years will be very familiar with the camo challenge grind that occurs every year. Essentially, to get the most extravagant and exciting weapon skins in the game, the ones that don't come as paid blueprints, you have to complete a bunch of challenges either in Zombies or in Multiplayer. While for some weapon archetypes this can be a walk in the park, others are designed to make your life a living hell, an experience that frankly continues to grind my gears.

It doesn't frustrate me because of the time investment involved to complete these camouflage challenges, in fact I'm completely fine with offering a time-consuming activity to keep dedicated fans entertained, but what does annoy me is how the balance for these challenges lacks coherence and makes no sense. Sure, landing 100 headshots with an assault rifle or an SMG is a walk in the park. It might take you a few hours, but it's plausible and completely doable, but 100 headshots with a pistol... You must be joking?

This isn't even the most egregious part of the whole setup either. As any Call of Duty player knows, there are certain weapon archetypes that are always better than the others. Assault rifles and SMGs will always outperform LMGs and shotguns, and Activision has never really seemed bothered about doing anything to change that. Again, this doesn't really phase me a whole bunch because this is a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Call of Duty's Multiplayer. But if these weapon types are notoriously poor compared to the community favourites, perhaps it'd be beneficial to make their camo challenges a bit less frustrating? Perhaps 50 headshots is enough for a pistol or shotguns, or even better, perhaps we return to one-shot kills for shotguns and sniper rifles, for example. As it stands, it's actually easier (and more fun) to get a knife golden than it is to do many of the other weapons, simply because all you need is 100 kills to complete that task, which is a breeze compared to trying to headshot an Omnimovement-abusing SMG-user while you're lugging about a heavy eight kilogram LMG.

But even this is trivial to what I personally deem the worst of the bunch: the HE-1 launcher. Sure, there are some more traditional weapons that are a nightmare to complete (cough, cough Goblin MK 2), but the HE-1 might just be one of the most ridiculous camo challenges I have ever seen. For reference, this is pretty much BOPS 6's equivalent of the RPG, meaning it doesn't have a targeting system designed to lock on and track aerial scorestreaks like the Cigma 2B. While you might be thinking back to RPGs of yore and wondering what the issue is, the HE-1 has a scoped reticle that you have to look through before firing. You cannot whip this out for a quick unexpected rocket attack, you have to aim and then pull the trigger, making it a fully planned notion to put into effect if you intend to use this weapon. Ok, why don't you take your time and bring down enemies pushing into you? Good shout and a great option until you are required to destroy scorestreaks with this godforsaken tool. Since it has no tracking, any form of distant scorestreak like a UAV is basically out of the question, meaning you are now being forced to hunt the far rarer helicopters anytime one makes an appearance. It's the sort of challenge that makes you wonder why you even bother attempting to unlock Dark Matter and such.

And this is just my gripes with Multiplayer. Yes, the Zombies challenges tend to be easier and less frustrating but boy do they require way, way more of your time. Again, if you're really pushing for it, you can probably tick off a Multiplayer slate of challenges in three to five hours per gun, but on Zombies, you will need double, maybe even triple that per weapon. The HE-1 requires 2,000 kills to acquire Purple Tiger! 2,000 kills with a launcher on a PvE mode to unlock the chance to complete the next two challenges before being able to take a stab at gold! Essentially, if you have any intention to play any game other than Black Ops 6 between now and whenever the next Call of Duty arrives (probably) in autumn next year, then you may as well accept the fact that you will never see Afterlife or Nebula on any of your weapons. Hell, even getting Opal on one weapon class is probably out of the question for many.

The point I'm trying to make is that Call of Duty's camos don't need to be so damn grindy. It can be time-consuming and challenging but much, much less frustrating if a couple of folk at Activision would just spend an afternoon designing better camo challenge parameters. If every game can offer tens of new and unique Achievements and Trophies to hunt, why can't a little bit of this creativity be stretched into the Multiplayer, where more people will be invested in the challenge-hunting endeavour anyway? It really doesn't seem like a ridiculous demand.