At Gamescom 2025, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 got its first major reveal following the teaser several months ago. A longer cinematic trailer was shown, and some of the team members were live at Opening Night Live to discuss what was new about the game and what to expect, primarily with the campaign. The campaign is going to pull from two preexisting Black Ops titles and support up to four players in co-op. It’s also going to make a significant change that some longtime players might not love, already providing a little bit of controversy several weeks before the game even launches.
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New Black Ops 7 Campaign Change Might Alienate Some Players
A few Call of Duty campaigns have had co-op, so that change for Black Ops 7 is not entirely new. However, the vast majority of campaigns have had adjustable difficulties, but that is not going to be the case with Black Ops 7. This is an intentional feature designed to go hand-in-hand with the addition of co-op play.
“We’ve built it for solo or four-player squads as well. You cannot pick a difficulty like past games. We’ve baked it in because you have to approach a co-op campaign differently, and we wanted to make sure the missions felt right for solo players,” associate creative director Miles Leslie said via IGN.
Leslie insisted that the game isn’t “forgetting about” and still “loves” solo players who won’t play with any number of friends, despite it being possible. Unfortunately for those gamers, the newest campaign was specifically made as a “social experience,” so single-player gamers may end up being alienated.
Leslie went on, “We want to make sure it’s fun, but the right amount of challenging for two, three, and four players as well.” For the most part, Call of Duty campaigns have let you change the difficulty at any time. If you were having trouble, then you could always just lower it until you reach the lowest setting. That won’t be possible this time.
This might upset veteran gamers. Plenty of story games (and the campaign is technically a small story game) do have difficulty settings. A resurgent take in the gaming community is that every single game like that should have difficulty settings to make it more accessible for everyone, but clearly, Black Ops 7 does not quite share that sentiment.
Call of Duty campaigns have been heavily maligned in recent years, but Black Ops 6‘s campaign was a breath of fresh air and a step in the right direction after some major misfires. We don’t know much about the actual content of the story in this year’s release, but what we do know suggests that this might be yet another controversial campaign.
The events are said to pick up from Black Ops II and Black Ops 6, so with two narratives, co-op play, and a lack of a difficulty setting, this is shaping up to be at least one of the most unique campaigns the series has had in a while. Time will tell if their decisions pay off as Black Ops 7 will arrive on November 14th for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.
What do you think? Is Activision making a huge mistake by not including difficulty settings and seemingly prioritizing co-op play here? Let us know in the comments!
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