After the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, it may be time to hang the Black Ops branding up in the rafters. In 2010, Call of Duty introduced its second sub-franchise in the form of Black Ops. Modern Warfare had already had two stellar entries and a third was on the way, but Treyarch was looking for its own consistent storyline. Instead of doing something else in the modern day, the studio went back to the past, connecting it with their last game, Call of Duty: World at War. We got a paranoid thriller about MK Ultra, JFK’s assassination, tensions with Cuba and Russia, and much more. It was very different from Modern Warfare, but highly welcomed.
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However, the original Modern Warfare series concluded with Modern Warfare 3 and Infinity Ward took a crack at some other ideas. One was a grounded, almost apocalyptic shooter about homegrown soldiers trying to fight back as underdogs after space lasers have decimated America. The other threw us into the far-flung future and focused on space warfare, allowing for dogfights in the stars and zero-G battles on planets other than Earth. Black Ops, on the other hand, kept going. There was never another series for Treyarch, and now it feels like it has overstayed its welcome.
Why Black Ops Has Run Its Course
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 just released and… it’s not great. There are parts of it that are fun, but it certainly feels held back by being a Black Ops game. What do I mean by this? Well, Black Ops is a series that takes place over the course of about 100 years, longer than that if you factor in World at War. It chronicles the distant future, the well-trodden past, and slightly more recent eras like the 90s, but the point is, it’s always jumping around. Even Black Ops 2 takes place in both the 1980s and 2025.
They’ve set up a lot of well-established lore as a result of this, which now begins to feel like restrictions. Black Ops 3 is set in 2065 and introduces things like wall-running, but Black Ops 4 is set in 2045 and doesn’t have wall-running.. but it does have the same Specialist multiplayer heroes. What that means is the augmented humans and technology for that advanced movement didn’t exist at that point, so now, a game like Black Ops 7 in 2035 can’t utilize wall-running. Instead, Black Ops 7 has to have some kind of half-measure like wall-jumping.
This isn’t me speculating either, this is a partial way that Treyarch itself justified wall-running not being included in Black Ops 7 when I spoke to developers at a preview event for the game in August. By creating such a wide spectrum of ideas throughout the franchise’s timeline, it has created walls and barriers that subsequent games must abide by. In theory, Black Ops could go beyond 2065, but at that point, why not make something brand new? Not only are all of the characters we know are dead and gone by that point, but the core ideas of the franchise have completely changed by then as well.
Narratively and mechanically, Black Ops is rooted in what has already been established and that limits what can be done with it creatively. It has already jumped so far ahead that it can’t iterate too much on what is already here. It has put Treyarch on a tight leash, but now, it’s time to break it and try something new. Not only will this just give the team much more creative freedom without having to worry about lore implications and whatnot, but it also means the fans will get something fresh as well.
What’s Next for Call of Duty?
It’s heavily rumored and expected that Infinity Ward will make Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 next year, but we’re not sure what Sledgehammer Games is up to. Some have hoped to see Advanced Warfare 2 finally happen, but I suspect they’re going to try another new subfranchise once again. So, where does that leave Treyarch? It’s kind of hard to say, but if they do put Black Ops to bed, I don’t think they’re going to go back to the past again.
Treyarch’s strengths have historically in creating fast, fluid movement, and that won’t really work well with anything before the Black Ops era of history. It seems like leaning into the future may be the way to go, but really the world is their oyster. After over 20 years of Call of Duty, it’s a bit hard to imagine new ideas for the series that wouldn’t radically change and overhaul the formula, but perhaps that’s also what it needs.
Treyarch is a talented team, and they’re responsible for some of the most innovative, outside-the-box ideas within Call of Duty. I trust that whatever they do next will continue to move the series forward, but it needs to break free from Black Ops. If they can successfully do that, I am sure they’ll give us another subfranchise that goes on for another decade or two.
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Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
