How To Take a Hostage in BO6: Using the Meat Shield, Explained

Hands down one of the more popular new additions to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the Meat Shield. This feature allows you to take a hostage and shoot your gun at the same time, so let’s find out how you can start using it.

How To Use the Meat Shield in BO6

While the Meat Shield is a brand new feature, it’s a very similar mechanic to the assassinations that we’ve seen in Call of Duty over the past several years. However, instead of immediately killing your target, you take them hostage and can move around the map with them in a headlock while being able to shoot at targets with an automatic weapon. Moreover, you’re able to communicate with the hostage you’ve taken, which has already made for some hilarious moments in BO6.

To see how the Meat Shield is used in BO6, check out the steps below:

• Sneak up behind a target and get close to them without alerting them to your presence. The target can be moving.
• When you’re close enough to an enemy with their back turned to you, you’ll see button prompts pop up on the HUD.
• One of the prompts says “Execute” and the other says “Body Shield.” Each prompt has a keybind next to it. For controller players, you need to tap R3/RS. For keyboard and mouse players, the button will be set in your keybinds menu.
• Once you tap the button, your character will take hold of the enemy and put them in a headlock. From here, you can move slowly, shoot at enemies, or eliminate the hostage.
• If you choose to eliminate the hostage, you can quickly kill them by tapping R3/RS or execute them by holding R3/RS.
• Enemies can still shoot at you when you have a hostage and your teammates can steal your hostage kill, so only use the Meat Shield feature with teammates you can trust.

The Meat Shield is certainly a feature with a specific use case, but it’s one of the best additions Treyarch has made in BO6. It might be difficult to pull off every match unless you hit constant flanks, but it’s always there for a funny moment.

Black Ops 6 will be available on October 25.