“Insecure” and “The First Purge” star Y’lan Noel will be the voice star of Xbox’s eagerly anticipated “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6”.
Details about Noel’s unnamed character and the game’s story are being kept under wraps until Activision formally unveils it at the Xbox Games Showcase event in Los Angeles on Sunday, but Activision marketing chief Tyler Bahl teased it. Diversity Noel is playing “a new character” as shown in the key art above.
“He’s never worked in gaming before, but we were really impressed with his voice tape. He’s super impressive, super thoughtful,” Bahl said. “And when you’re playing a new character, we give the actors a bio, we set the scene, but they create the character, they bring it to life. So as the lead, he’s playing this brand new character that he’s defined and the team is very impressed with what he’s been able to deliver.”
Known for playing Daniel in Issa Rae’s “Insecure” and starring in Gerard McMurray’s “The First Purge,” Noel will next star alongside Natalie Portman in the Apple TV+ limited series “Lady in the Lake.” His other notable credits include starring opposite Rae in the romantic drama “The Photograph”, Cleopatra Coleman in “A Lot of Nothing” and the indie comedy “The Weekend” opposite Sasheer Zamata.
The Activision team used new VFX technology to record Noel moving in a dark studio to create the “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” poster, which features Noel’s character. And the dynamic key art is just one part of Activision’s larger strategy to tease “Black Ops 6” through its “The Truth Lies” marketing campaign, which for the past few weeks has seen online image “leaks,” influencer posts and “takeovers of news vans and newspaper front pages.” take
“‘Black Ops’ has always been about intrigue. It’s about these secret government agencies and really figuring out what the truth is,” Bahl said. “And when we start to break that down, especially for today, in this moment, There’s digital media changing, there’s things changing all the time. And so we really wanted to build a campaign around this concept of ‘The Truth Lies.’ No. And we want to lean into it in a big way. I think there’s a theme of the game going against you. But building on that, we want the audience to be a little bit Feel more like, ‘Can I believe what I’m reading? Can I believe what I’m seeing?’ – as the game will feel once players can play.”
The answers are coming this Sunday at the Xbox Games Showcase, which will be available to stream online, when Activision will release a “Black Ops 6” trailer and gameplay details about the “Call of Duty” title.
“The showcase is 100% focused on ‘Black Ops 6’ for us. ‘Call of Duty’ is always about size and swagger, and we look for these big moments that we can take advantage of and showcase, because we haven’t showcased in almost a decade, this is a great opportunity for us. Something to do with Xbox in their biggest moments of the year.