Black Ops 6 will not include the most hated weapon in Call of Duty.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which was released in beta last month, didn't convince me to buy the next 12 months of CoD. However, the fact that Treyarch has left behind one of the most irritating and disliked weapons is a plus. Call of Duty is launching without a riot-shield for the first time in many years (as noted by Dexerto).

Oh, the riot-shield. The slab of bulletproof tempered glass with a handle attached hasn't been in every game in the series, most recently Black Ops Cold War in 2020. But it's a mainstay of Call of Duty "melee" for over a decade.

The riot shield is a unique weapon in the CoD arsenal. It is also controversial. Every year, old arguments come to the surface. Many people believe that a shield which blocks all bullets coming from the front is bad for CoD because it allows for cheesy strafing and forces players to play awkwardly around it. Others say that the shield isn’t that great when it comes down it and that it’s not difficult to use a flashbang to solve the problem.

Treyarch's position is clear. Black Ops has featured riot shields in different forms. Most notably, in Black Ops 4 where an operator carried a shield with a pistol-slot you could shoot through. But Black Ops 6 is Treyarch's 2nd game in a line that will skip shields completely. That's the way it looks right now. Shield lovers should not hold their breath, as there's a chance that a shield could appear in a future update.

This is the Call of Duty teeter totter. This year, we don't get the riot shield but we do get some strange melee options. A baseball bat is unlocked at 52 levels and, if Treyarch keeps up their habits, maybe a ballistic knife or explosive crossbow next year.