Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 starts like any other game in the 21-year-old series. You’re in the desert hiding behind cover and shooting at enemies alongside your teammates. While Black Ops 6’s opening level feels great to play, thanks to Call of Duty’s best-in-class controls, this was also an understated introduction to the full experience.

This opening hour gives the impression that this will be a by-the-numbers, globe-trotting campaign full of over-the-top action set pieces. In reality, this game is teeming with fresh ideas that all hit the mark regarding gameplay and pacing. And while Black Ops 6’s story quickly descends into a bunch of codename gobbledygook by the game’s halfway point, the sheer variety it provides feels like a curated playlist of cool scenarios crafted to maximize fun in a first-person shooter. For this reason, Black Ops 6 breaks the mold and creates the series’ most compelling campaign in years.

Many filmmakers have tried and failed to make a follow-up to John Carpenter’s The Thing. In the early 2000s, director Frank Darabont (The Mist, The Shawshank Redemption) pitched a miniseries sequel that the studio rejected, and a prequel movie from the screenwriter of Arrival launched in 2011 to brutal reviews. Even Carpenter himself hasn’t been able to craft a worthy successor to his horror sci-fi classic. Now, we can add two more names to that list: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.

The duo first made a name for themselves when they wrote and produced A Quiet Place. Since then, they’ve written and directed a series of low-budget horror movies, with the latest being Heretic from A24. But the duo tells Inverse that, at one point, they took a serious run at writing the most impossible horror sequel of all time.