“Call of Duty: Black Ops 7” signals a franchise in stasis | Video games

“Call of Duty: Black Ops 6” was one of the most underrated games of 2025, a blockbuster experience with a truly engaging campaign and some of the best map design and multiplayer physics in the history of the genre. Look, some people gave up on “Call of Duty” years ago, tired of paying $60-$70 every year for what often seems like nothing more than new maps. The franchise operates on a philosophy that my grandfather long preached: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And given how much money these games made, they’re certainly not broke. People love to complain about “Call of Duty,” but they still buy it in ridiculous quantities.

As defensive as I was about the criticism often leveled at “Black Ops 6” from people who hadn’t even played it, “Black Ops 7” deserves every one of them. The multiplayer portion of the game, which most players use, felt like a step backwards at launch, with uninspired new maps. It’s telling that the most commonly chosen cards in multiplayer matches and the ones that seem to be the most popular are actual reworks of those from other games: Hijacked, Raid, and Express. The new maps are clunky and poorly designed. And the game’s physics don’t seem as consistent either. At first, the grenades simply didn’t work, causing virtually no damage.

To be honest, the game mechanics seem to have improved over the past few weeks. But I have to admit that I’m a little exhausted by games that punish their most loyal fans by releasing subpar products that are then fixed via patches.

Of course, fans of this series, even the most reluctant ones, will tell you that patience is key with a game like “Call of Duty.” I don’t like the launch cards: six new ones will arrive in the first season, which started this week. And, to be honest, they seem like a step up from the initial batch, although, again, the highlight is a remastered “classic” in Standoff. That said, I think the developers will continue to tweak “Black Ops 7” to make it better with each update. I already like it a lot more than I did a few weeks ago.

What they can’t change is perhaps the worst campaign in franchise history. Story-driven, cinema-inspired campaigns have become a less and less important part of games like “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield,” but “Black Ops 6” had a great one, and this one promised to pick up where it left off, with a cooperative campaign that can be played with some of your best friends. It’s an absolute waste. Starring Milo Ventimiglia and Michael Rooker, it is primarily built on the mission of “BO6”, which integrated the gameplay of Zombies mode into the campaign via a psychedelic agent that allowed your soldier to fight a supernatural enemy. This aspect has been increased tenfold, leading to a first boss fight in which you literally avoid giant machetes falling from the sky.

This is where a reviewer would usually tell the story of a campaign mode, but I can’t even really tell you what the “Black Ops 7” one is about. All I know is that I had to fight a giant Rooker-Meets-Terminator creature more than once. Even worse than the horrible boss fights are the waves of generic enemies that have all the AI ​​from an episode of this series from over a decade ago. Campaigns in a game like “Black Ops 7” should feature intelligent enemies, bad guys who can react to your gameplay, communicate, flank, and be unpredictable. The enemies in “BO7” have all the personality of the zombies in a “House of the Dead” arcade game.

It is remarkable how few people are participating in the campaign. My trophy for completing it revealed that less than 1% of players achieved this goal. While it’s tempting to dismiss the campaign as not even worth talking about, given how few people play it, I feel like this is one of the places where this series could push back against criticism that every episode is the same by offering something worth playing. Developers simply refuse to seize this opportunity.

“Black Ops 7” offers many more ways to play beyond campaign and multiplayer, including fan favorites Zombies and Warzone, as well as the return of Dead Ops Arcade. And there are some welcome new tweaks. I like the addition of Overclocks, little customizable options to add to scores, field upgrades and equipment, and the new Overload mode (basically Capture the Flag) is fun.

But it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s all becoming extremely repetitive. Nothing is forever. Will the feeling that every “Call of Duty” is the same as the last “Call of Duty” eventually catch up with these video game soldiers? Probably not this year, but I don’t think “Call of Duty” can rest on its success forever without experiencing a decline. The franchise may not need rescuing yet, but time is running out.

The publisher has provided a review copy of this title. It is now available.