Black Ops 7 Sales Suggest Call of Duty May Have Its Worst Year in 17 Years

December 17, 2025, 12:39pm

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s place on the sales charts has been revealed, and it’s pretty bleak for the franchise. The Call of Duty franchise has reigned supreme for almost two decades straight as a top-seller. Despite typically releasing in the last two months of the year, Call of Duty regularly sits at the very top of the yearly sales charts. It’s a force to be reckoned with, and the only time it has been dethroned was for the releases of Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Hogwarts Legacy, AKA megaton games that are some of the best-selling games in history.

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However, this year has been very different. Battlefield 6 debuted with massive sales, selling over 7 million copies in the game’s first weekend. It showed that Call of Duty really had to nail things in order to compete. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have done so. Black Ops 7 was slammed by user reviews and met with a very lukewarm critical response. Although initial critic reviews were positive, the average Metacritic score has tumbled into the high 60s, which is weak for a Call of Duty game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s Sales Indicate Massive Fall-Off for the Series

Many have been wondering just where Call of Duty would fall on the sales charts this year with the poor reception. It has been deemed too big to fail and has still come out on top even in its worst years, but it seems like the tide has turned this year. Data tracking firm Circana has released the list of the best selling games in the United States for November 2025, as well as the best-selling games year-to-date, and Black Ops 7‘s sales tell an interesting story.

Black Ops 7 was the best selling game of November in the US, but faced no real competition with new releases. Nintendo released Kirby Air Riders and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, but those aren’t games that would get in Call of Duty’s way. Battlefield 6 came in second for the month, likely benefiting from the game’s various Black Friday sales which dropped the price to as low as $35 at some retailers.

However, despite being the best seller in November, Black Ops 7 did not make a big splash. The game is currently the seventh best-selling game of the year in the United States, falling below Battlefield 6, Borderlands 4, Monster Hunter: Wilds, and various sports games like NBA 2K and Madden. Call of Duty hasn’t sat this low on the sales charts since Call of Duty: World at War, where it was the sixth best-selling game of 2008 and sold 2.75 million copies, which was when the series was still rising to the top.

We don’t know how many copies Black Ops 7 sold, but it is more than 3 million, as Ghost of Yotei sold 3.3 million as of November 2nd and is ranked at number 10 on this chart. However, it also appears to be less than 11 million copies as Monster Hunter: Wilds has sold 10.7 million copies as of the end of October and is placed at number 3 on this chart. It should also be noted that Black Ops 7 is available on Xbox Game Pass, so there are likely a ton of people playing the game who don’t own the game. However, Black Ops 6 still managed to be the best-selling game of 2024, despite being on Game Pass.

Of course, there’s still time for Black Ops 7 to get closer to the top of the sales charts for the rest of the year, but it’s a big climb. It will be assisted by the fact that the game has gotten some major discounts this month and a free trial. Activision has taken note of the game’s performance already and stated that future Call of Duty games will do more to innovate and take user feedback into consideration. It was a surprising statement, but one that seemed to indicate Black Ops 7 isn’t performing where the studio wants it to. Overall, it seems like fans have largely rejected Black Ops 7.

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