Downs are not new for Call of Duty. 2013’s Ghosts was bland and only remarkable for how unremarkable it was. 2023’s Modern Warfare III was a glorified expansion pack masquerading as a full entry. But 2025’s Black Ops 7 is a different kind of down. It’s the kind of down that has to force some sort of reckoning within Activision and couldn’t have come at a worse time for the shooter series.
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Is One of the Series’ Worst Entries
Black Ops 7’s ineptitude is evident in just about part of the experience. The campaign feels like it was cobbled together from other assets in record time. Not only does it have its share of AI-generated slop, its short and linear stages of simple corridor shooting are further padded out with missions set in a lifeless, battle royale-esque open map. Players are also almost never tasked with anything more complicated than “shoot the bad guys with a bunch of futuristic weapons with slick reload animations.” Variety has always been a high point of the best Call of Duty titles, so almost exclusively being forced to run forward and hold down the trigger in order to kill scores and scores of overly tanky enemies gets boring almost immediately. Its story doesn’t even try to do anything interesting, instead banking on star talent and vaguely gesturing at nostalgia to get across its staggeringly undercooked plot.
Focusing on co-op has watered down the campaign and done immeasurable harm to it, regardless if it is played with other people or not. It’s telling that not being able to pause or continue a mission later are annoying qualities that don’t even rank among the most offensive parts of this chunk of the experience.
Zombies and competitive multiplayer are comparatively much better, but still can’t escape mundanity. The edges have been further sanded off Zombies, turning it into something with less friction and, thus, less satisfaction. The competitive multiplayer does little to tweak the formula in intriguing ways and mainly seems to serve as a stat reset so players can grind out the same scopes and suppressors. Even though running and gunning with Call of Duty’s smooth controls can provide small hits of dopamine, that thrill fades quickly because of how familiar it is.
Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders Have Had Amazing Launches
Flubbing this hard would be bad no matter what, but now Call of Duty has some competition that has only made this dud even more damning. Battlefield, for the first time in many years, has finally had a great launch with Battlefield 6. Even with a stinker of a campaign, its multiplayer offerings have widely been viewed as a faithful return to form for Battlefield after years of unnecessary struggles.
Arc Raiders isn’t quite in the same genre as those two titles, but it’s been drumming up a lot of buzz. Embark Studios’ second game has hit a fever pitch with its unique approach to extraction shooters. It’s been an anecdote machine of players working together and against each other often to hilarious ends that have breathed life into the online shooter space.
If players have already spent their money on Battlefield 6 or Arc Raiders (or both) and the two games are still drafting off their launch-era hype, then there’s not much room for Black Ops 7, especially as it has almost been exclusively panned. Battlefield was always Call of Duty’s most direct competitor, given the Western focus and semi-comparable budgets, so Battlefield 6 is an easy choice for those who want a premium multiplayer-focused first-person shooters. And Arc Raiders is taking up enough oxygen with regards to premium online shooters to make it the new hotness. Call of Duty has had to compete with Fortnite and other free-to-play games over the last decade, but this is one of the few times it has had such direct competition on this scale.
Black Ops 7‘s Sales and Player Counts Aren’t Looking So Hot
Black Ops 7‘s lackluster reception is being supported through various bits of data, too. Steam’s player charts paint a grim picture for Black Ops 7, as it has been hovering around 70,000 players during November 17th and garnered around 60,000 to 80,000 during its launch weekend. Black Ops 6, on the other hand, had around 250,000 to 300,000 players during its launch weekend. Steam player counts are just a snapshot of a specific part of the base, but both games, more or less, were released under almost the same circumstances: They both were available on other platforms, part of the generic (and ever-annoying) Call of Duty launcher, and released on Game Pass. For context, Steam charts show that Arc Raiders’ daily player count on Valve’s platform hovers between 140,000 to 480,000 people, while Battlefield 6’s base fluctuates between 100,000 to 300,000.
It’s not just limited to player counts, either. United Kingdom sales for Black Ops 7’s physical versions were also down 61% when compared to Black Ops 6, and the official Call of Duty social media accounts posted vaguely about Black Ops 7 without calling out any milestones, a likely sign of it not breaking even the most obscure of records. Even Google searches for Black Ops 6 were much higher during its launch when compared to Black Ops 7.
It remains to be seen how damaging Black Ops 7 will be to Call of Duty. There have been other terrible entries and those didn’t crash the brand. It’ll also still undoubtedly going to make a ton of money, regardless of how relatively down the sales are. However, Black Ops 7 is facing pressure in a way Call of Duty hasn’t faced in a long time. Call of Duty hasn’t been this weak while also being pitted against two premium, online-focused contemporaries that have captured lighting in a bottle.
It’s unclear how exactly this will all shake out or if Activision will take the unlikely but necessary step of pulling back from annualized releases. Regardless, it doesn’t look good and this bad installment will only weaken player trust going forward. Black Ops 7 has made the 2026 entry’s journey that much tougher and it was already going to have to contend with the juggernaut that is Grand Theft Auto 6. It would be an arduous fight for Call of Duty at its peak and even more so when coming off an installment as wretched as Black Ops 7.
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