The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 campaign featured a twist ending, revealing a mysterious CIA operative who many have assumed could be Jackson Caine.
The latest action-packed epic from Treyarch and Activision follows up almost directly on the events of 2020's Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, bringing back fan-favorite characters like Frank Woods and Russell Adler.
This time, the campaign sees players going on a Mission: Impossible-esque mission worldwide to stop the clandestine military outfit Pantheon and its deployment of a psycho-chemical weapon called Cradle.
The BO6 Ending Explained
After skipping and hopping around the world, the Black Ops 6 campaign twist ending heads back to the team's central safe house in Avalon (a fictional forested area in formerly Soviet Bulgaria), which had become such a major part of the story to that point.
After capturing their double-agent former CIA handler, Jane Harrow, this final mission follows the game's central team of covert operatives (highlighted by the player character, Case) as they interrogate her for information on where she plans to launch the Cradle attack.
Just before this, it was revealed that Cradle was, in fact, a CIA invention, and Harrow had once helped develop it. It turns out that Harrows worked within a secret Kentucky-based U.S. military facility, developing the creation of a potential super soldier.
Those tests resulted in the creation of Cradle. However, following a terrible biochemical leak, the entire project was abandoned, and Harrow flipped on the U.S. government, becoming a leading member of Pantheon working within the CIA.
To make matters even more complicated, as a part of this Cradle backstory, it is implicated that the player character, Case, got his name from being "Case One" in Cradle testing, meaning that he has the dangerous chemical weapon lying dormant in his veins, waiting to be activated.
Case holds it together quite well throughout much of the game, only succumbing to passing instances of hallucinations and voices in his head. However, it all falls apart during this twist ending.
As Pantheon descends on the safe house, hoping to execute their plan of deploying Cradle in the U.S. capital, the disgraced military outfit retrieves Harrow from Frank Woods and the team and looks to have escaped.
However, with the rest of his team down, Case takes it upon himself to save the day, going after the Pantheon soldiers to, hopefully, bring all of this to an end.
Case launches himself at the helicopter being used to help Harrow escape, climbing aboard and killing everyone on the aircraft except for his former CIA handler.
The helicopter comes careening out of the sky because of this assault by Case, leading to one final stand between him and Harrow. With the aircraft filling with water, Case beats Harrow with a vial of Cradle on board, hallucinating as he chokes her out.
The scene then cuts to black, with the player left to assume that both Harrow and Cradle are dead. The game picks back up with Frank Woods and the rest of Case's team meeting with CIA Director Daniel Livingstone.
Livingstone tells the team their work is not done, as Pantheon lives on and still has operatives working within the CIA. One final scene shows a mysterious character sneaking into Livingstone's office and logging onto his computer before cutting to the game's credits.
Was That Jackson Caine in Black Ops 6?
This twist ending, revealing Black Ops 6's mystery character in its final moments, has fans diving deep into a pool of speculation.
Jackson Caine
The prevailing theory among fans is that this mystery man is Jackson Caine and is used to set up the seasonal multiplayer story for Black Ops 6's ever-unfolding post-launch content plan.
Caine is one of the multiplayer skins currently available in the game and is described as the leader of a Pantheon kill squad known as Crimson One, who has been tasked with taking down Frank Woods' Black Ops team.
This theory would make the most sense as Call of Duty has become known for doling out bits of story that follow up on a game's campaign each ensuing multiplayer season.
With Caine's continued pursuit of Woods and his crew seemingly being a big part of the post-launch story content, this would be a logical tease to include to end the game's campaign adventure.
Case (aka Bell)
Some believe this final cutscene could also be a tease for the next game in the Black Ops series, potentially hiding ties to past and future Call of Duty games.
Some seem to think this mystery character could be Case. His death was not shown during the final mission, so he may still work in the shadows.
However, given his exposure once again to Cradle in the game's final helicopter sequence, this last cutscene may indicate that the villainous Pantheon is now controlling him and could be an antagonist in the franchise going forward.
To take this Case theory to another level, a certain contingent of fans have even speculated that not only is the mystery man behind Livingstone's computer Case, but Case is also the main protagonist from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Bell.
At the end of that game, Bell was seemingly shot dead by CIA Agent and Black Ops franchise mainstay Russell Adler. But what if, following that, he was taken prisoner by the CIA and experimented on with something like Cradle?
During the Black Ops 6 campaign, Adler's knowledge of Cradle seems to date back about 10 years, which lines up almost exactly with the events of Black Ops Cold War.
This would make sense, as fans never expressly see Case or Bell's face during either of the games. Also, a character present during Black Ops 6's opening interrogation scene looks awfully like the man who sits down at Livingstone's computer at the end of the game.
If Case was as big of a part of Frank Woods' team as the game suggests, why was he not there during this interrogation/briefing? Well, maybe he was, and he is this clean-cut military man fans get glimpses of during Black Ops 6's opening mission.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
