That Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 beta last month didn't totally sell me on the next 12 months of CoD, but the fact that Treyarch is leaving one of the most annoying, disliked weapons behind is scoring some points with me. For the first time in years, Call of Duty will launch without a riot shield (as noticed by Dexerto).
Oh, the riot shield. The slab of bulletproof glass with a handle bolted onto it hasn't made the cut in every entry in the series (most recently sitting out 2020's Black Ops Cold War), but it's been a mainstay of Call of Duty's "melee" category going on a decade.
Treyarch's opinion is clear. The Black Ops series has entertained the riot shield in various forms—most notably in Black Ops 4, where one operator carried a riot shield with a pistol slot you could shoot through—but Black Ops 6 will be Treyarch's second game in a row that skips over shields entirely. At least, that's how it looks for now. There's always a possibility that a shield will pop up in a post-release update between now and next October, but shield lovers shouldn't hold their breath.
