It’s no secret that both Black Ops 6 and Warzone have been having a tough time keeping players around, with numbers having declined considerably when compared to past titles.

As tracked by Steam DB, Treyarch’s entry averaged 102,284 concurrent players on Steam in February 2025. Compare that to the MW3 era that attracted 154,491 players exactly one year ago, a 40% increase over Black Ops 6.

Some of this decline can be attributed to Game Pass, with Black Ops 6 being the first Call of Duty game available on Microsoft’s subscription. Even so, a drop this steep implies people aren’t as interested in sticking around, and I think it’s because this year’s game is missing two major features from Modern Warfare 3.

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Aftermarket Parts were MW3’s secret sauce

In MW3, every week a new set of Weekly Challenges was released. Completing these rewarded a variety of items, ranging from simple things like new camos to game-changing additions like Aftermarket Parts.

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Weekly Challenges gave players a reason to log on every week in pursuit of new, exciting gear.

This system worked extremely well, with the latter being the real brilliance behind Weekly Challenges. Debuting in Modern Warfare 3, Aftermarket Parts were unique attachments that often transformed weapons entirely.

At their most extreme, you could use them to turn an ordinary rifle into a laser energy weapon or equip a pocket flamethrower to the bottom of your gun.

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Not all of them were this crazy, but they all introduced something fun by either making a particular weapon feel unique or Sledgehammer Games using them to switch up the meta. Either way, they gave players a reason to log on every week – something Black Ops 6 is lacking.

Treyarch needs to take notes

Technically speaking, Aftermarket Parts feature in Black Ops 6 in a limited capacity. While they don’t go by the same name, you can consider attachments like the Tanto .22 Binary Trigger and the AEK 973’s Full Auto Mod to be comparable.

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Black Ops 6’s new attachments haven’t had the same impact Aftermarket Parts did last year.

However, these aren’t just rare but are also balanced in a way that means they are never meta. They aren’t even better than the base guns most the time, making it hard to justify using them for anything more than a game or two. That’s not going to be enough to make people care and is a big reason why hardly anyone talks about these attachments.

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Funnily enough, this is a reoccuring theme for many new weapons. Take the TR6, which is not only a disappointing rendition of the iconic FAL but also the worst semi-auto gun altogether. It’s a similar story for the Cypher 091, Feng 82, and PPSh-41, none of which even come close to challenging the top options.

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A combination of these factors has me growing increasingly wearisome of Black Ops 6. The new content isn’t being released as frequently as MW3, and the content itself isn’t as meaningful as it should be, at least not in the case of weapons and attachments.

Of course, the new maps have been great and the Shadow Hunt event was a true return to form. However, Black Ops 6 still falls short of MW3 as a live service, and the easiest way to fix that is for Treyarch to take inspiration from last year’s game that delivered the best post-launch content we’ve ever seen.

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