The year is 2025, the period that 2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 took place in. The game painted a picture of a near-future war fought with drones, robots, and malicious cyber attacks that could dismantle a country in hours. All of this was led by a calculated, vengeful mastermind named Raul Menendez, who fostered a cult of personality to gain support for his attacks against the West. That game can end in a variety of ways, including Menendez’s death, which seems to be the canonical ending. That seemed to be the end of that story, but it is one that has had a lasting impact as its themes and various plot beats have been paralleled by reality itself over the last decade.
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As a result, developer Treyarch has decided it’s time to revisit this story with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, a game that was greenlit and developed concurrently with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Last week, I flew out to Treyarch to see what the developer was cooking up with this game. The team invited us into a theater and proceeded to tell us about every mode in the game for an hour and a half.
On the surface, the game appears to be extremely ambitious and expansive, offering what seems to be the biggest Call of Duty package to date. The entire game can be played co-operatively with friends across the three main modes (Campaign, Zombies, and Multiplayer), but there’s also a gigantic open-world RPG-like mode connected to the campaign known as Endgame, which opens up after you finish the main story. Without further ado, here’s everything I learned about Black Ops 7 during my visit to Treyarch.
An Ambitious and Twisty Campaign, But Potentially Undercooked
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 takes place in 2035, a decade after Black Ops 2. While this is first and foremost a follow-up to Black Ops 2, Treyarch has also found ways to link it to Black Ops 6 as well. An older Troy Marshall appears in the game to help guide David Mason, who returns as the protagonist for the first time in over a decade. Sgt. Woods is also dead at this point, having succumbed to an illness and old age, however, some brief glimpses of footage indicate a younger version of him pre-wheelchair will appear in hallucinations or flashbacks.
Despite having killed Menendez, a new viral video of the Black Ops 2 villain begins circulating in 2035 and shakes Mason to his core. Old wounds are reopened and a new threat begins to emerge, prompting a response. Mason and his team are deployed to a fictitious city known as Avalon to confront Emma Kagan (played by Mad Men’s Kiernan Shipka), the head of a booming militant tech company known as The Guild who is believed to be involved in Menendez’s return.
After shooting some robots and faceless goons, the team is led into a trap where they are drugged and forced to relive crucial moments from past Black Ops games, including ones David Mason wasn’t even there for. Treyarch confirmed there are 11 missions in the game, including ones set in Los Angeles, Nicaragua, Angola, and Alaska, locations that are all critical to Menendez’s history with the Mason family. Mason’s team will have to fight their way through his trauma and find out what’s really going on, but it will be a mental battle just as much as a physical one.
Treyarch’s Yale Miller told me in an interview that even though Mason wasn’t there for some of these events, he likely heard about them from his dad or Woods, and their perspective would have a great degree of influence on his understanding of what happened. Ultimately, Menendez is the big piece of connective tissue across all of their lives.
“Whether or not he was there, those things would almost be worse in the telling or the understandings,” said Miller. “Maybe some parents wouldn’t explain what went down, but I could definitely imagine Woods pulling him aside and telling him what went on in Angola or what happened in Vorkuta or the other things that have happened in our narratives.”
I got major Black Ops 3 vibes from this campaign, not just because it has co-op, but because it leans into the trippy otherworldly levels that were featured heavily at the end of that game and offers different abilities to the player. There are floating pieces of land, gigantic machetes falling out of the sky like mortar fire, and nightmare-ish looking canon fodder enemies, none of which feels very cohesive or distinct. Miller also told me that the butterfly seen in the initial reveal trailer for Black Ops 7 will sort of be a visual indicator of when things are really happening or are the result of a hallucination via the toxin that has drugged Mason’s team, so the entire game won’t necessarily be all in their head.
Something that also surprised me is that we didn’t really get a raw look at any particular level; it was a lot of cut-up footage that just showcased typical Call of Duty shooting galleries which didn’t really impress me. This was apparently something that was debated upon within Treyarch as they were trying to ensure they didn’t spoil things for fans or press. It’s evident that the story of Black Ops 7 has a lot going on in it that the studio wants to keep a big secret. They showed us a screen with all 11 missions in the game, but some of them were blurred or labeled with question marks, which intrigued me.
Despite all of the mystery surrounding the story and how much I love Call of Duty campaigns, the gameplay rang hollow. It was a lot of shooting without much substance. Warzone-esque colored weapons could be seen on the ground and characters can pick up abilities, such as one that lets you jump extremely high like in Advanced Warfare, suggesting some level of choice in the gameplay. However, it seemed like the typical Call of Duty illusion of freedom and sandbox gameplay, but with a tight leash. Additionally, although falling machetes are wild, it’s not the kind of cinematic set piece that Call of Duty does best. I just kept thinking about how I don’t know if I am interested in visiting the fun house mirror versions of old Black Ops 2 levels. I am still intrigued, and I will play it, but I have tempered my expectations a bit.
Miller confirmed to me that Black Ops 7 has a linear story, but said there are “branching thoughts and paths that you kind of weave your way through,” but it will all lead back to the same spot. Instead, they’re looking to the campaign’s endgame content for more branching content, though that will also have its own definitive ending.
The campaign for Black Ops 7 will feature what is essentially a whole other mode called Endgame. In this mode, you will be able to play as any operator you want in an open-world map known as Avalon. It basically turns Call of Duty into an RPG as you build up your character with new abilities, loadouts, and level-ups that increase things like your health and agility. You work your way around the map, which is populated with up to 32 other players, clearing objectives and fighting NPCs as part of a whole new conflict. We were told it would take multiple sessions to reach the “end” of this mode. However, if you die, you lose all of your progress and start from the beginning.
It sounds extremely ambitious and like a great way to get more people to engage with the campaign. My only fear is that this will be undercooked. Anytime Call of Duty has tried to open up its gameplay to be more sandbox-y, it feels cheap and somewhat limited. Modern Warfare III’s open-ended missions were the worst part of that game and lacked weight. If there’s actual storytelling happening in Endgame and not just someone talking over a radio to deliver exposition, there’s potential for something really unique.
I just don’t want this to be a mode where I collect loot, drive around clearing sterile outposts, and check off mindless objectives. I want it to be engaging, not just another way to farm XP and grind challenges. Treyarch has noted that it wants this mode to be “never-ending”, even citing the replayability of Zombies as a source of inspiration. If their goal is to match that, it has to be more than mind-numbing shooting galleries.
A Big Multiplayer Mode Inspired by the Past
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s main course is, of course, the multiplayer. The team is building out a robust launch offering with returning carry-forward content from Black Ops 6 (skins, weapons, etc.) and 16 6v6 maps, three of which are remakes of iconic Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 maps such as Raid, Hijacked, and Express. It’s great to see that they’re not totally leaning on Black Ops 2 for its launch maps, as it likely means we will have more remakes to look forward to in seasonal updates, but also are given a chance to still experience some new battlegrounds as well.
Outside of the maps, Black Ops 7 features weaponry directly inspired by previous Black Ops games including the Peacekeeper, the PDW, the Rampart, M8A1, and the DSR sniper rifle. Some of these will have new names, but Treyarch made it clear that about half of the 30 launch weapons in the game have appeared in a previous Black Ops game in some capacity. Even score streaks are inspired by past games with things like the RC-XD returning. However, there are some pretty cool new and powerful streaks too. There’s a new streak known as the Rhino which is like a mini-titan from Titanfall that falls out of the sky and shreds its foes. Treyarch described it as the Black Ops version of a Juggernaut, which felt apt.
There’s also an extremely powerful sniper rifle that can be assembled on the field. It has X-Ray vision, allowing you to see and shoot people through walls thanks to a powerful charge. It looks like it will pack a hell of a punch and be a rewarding streak for those who are fans of snipers.
Given Black Ops 7 was developed in parallel with Black Ops 6, it appears to be a more refined version of that game with a futuristic twist. Meat shields return with the ability to tag your foe with a grenade before kicking them into a crowd and omnimovement is still present, but now expanded with a feature known as wall jumping. You can bounce off of walls, allowing you to propel yourself across gaps or away from danger. It’s not as innovative or exciting as something like wall-running, regardless of how divisive that was, though. It feels a bit like a half-measure to make the game feel futuristic, but without adding something too game-changing or controversial.
I started to get the sense that Black Ops 7 may be afraid of making too many big, definitive choices with its multiplayer as we learned more about it. For years, tactical sprint has been another divisive topic among Call of Duty fans. Instead of removing it entirely, Treyarch has made it an optional perk. Similarly, if you want to ADS while wall-jumping, running, or sliding, you’ll need a perk for that too. The twitchier, faster movement has been made an option, which means the default gameplay will likely be slightly slowed down compared to previous games. Want your score streaks to loop? That’s a perk too. Even the Advanced Warfare-style mega jump is an equippable ability in the campaign rather than part of the core movement (for the record, I have no idea if it’s part of multiplayer).
It’s clear that a lot of the more dicey elements of Call of Duty have just been segregated to perks this time. When you look at that in conjunction with the half-baked wall jump, it feels like a Call of Duty game that is afraid of making too many big, definitive decisions (with the exception of excluding the Pick 10 system that fans want to see return). It’s riding a line that tries to appeal to as many different kinds of Call of Duty players as possible, but at the cost of feeling less interesting.
Zombies Looks Bigger and Better Than Ever
Finally, Treyarch gave us a taste of Zombies in Black Ops 7 and it might be the most exciting part of this entire game. They’re still keeping a lot of things under wraps until early September, but we were given a healthy amount of information in our presentation. A new iteration of the original Zombies crew returns and joins forces with the Black Ops 6 Zombies team as part of the Dark Aether storyline. They neglected to share much more beyond that, but you can play as any of the eight Zombies heroes and the different team compositions will lead to unique dialogue.
Regardless of your roster, Zombies is returning to a reimagined take on Tranzit, the massive launch map from Black Ops II. The unnamed Black Ops 7 map will be the biggest round-based Zombies map in the history of the franchise, which isn’t surprising when you hear what they’re doing with it. It doesn’t seem to necessarily be a remake of Tranzit, but more so taking the ideas from that map and doing something new with them. Treyarch described the map as something akin to the Bermuda Triangle, where all of the different points of interest on the map are pulled in from different time periods.
All of these locations are connected by roads that you can travel between. However, instead of relying on a bus, you’ll be driving yourself around the map via a customizable “wonder vehicle.” This vehicle is a big pick-up truck composed of weapons, armor, and supernatural modifications. They briefly showed us an image of the truck which had the three heads of the Abomination on the grille, suggesting it may be able to munch on zombies that get in your path.
All six of the POIs have also been spun off into their own Survival maps, so you can get a more traditional and focused Zombies experience if the sprawling map isn’t your speed. If that wasn’t enough for you, Treyarch is also bringing back Dead Ops Arcade, the twinstick arcade shooter that made its debut as a hidden mode in Call of Duty: Black Ops in 2010. As is true for the rest of the game, any progress earned in Dead Ops Arcade 4 carries over to the rest of the game, which is a huge win for fans looking to level up while having fun.
No Shortage of Content, But Mildly Underwhelming
Nothing about Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 looked bad at all; in fact, it seems fairly serviceable and it’s clearly bursting at the seams with content. It just didn’t light a fire in my soul and left me feeling very mixed. Even as a big fan of Black Ops 2, the callbacks to it didn’t give me any kind of warm and fuzzy feeling. I love Call of Duty, but as time goes on, it feels like they’re trying to make a game for everyone. That means there’s an option for everything. While choice and player empowerment can be good, it feels like it eventually becomes a cover for not having to make definitive choices. The campaign is also taking some big swings, but the history of the series (particularly Black Ops 3 and Modern Warfare III) has me bracing for something lukewarm at best.
Maybe I will be totally proven wrong when this game comes out and it’ll blow my socks off. I am still approaching the final game with an open mind, but I wanted to leave this preview feeling excited, but I left feeling mildly deflated. A lot of stuff was told to me, but I think I need to see more to really understand it. I am glad there’s plenty to do in Black Ops 7 and that people will get a good bang for their buck, but I just wish it felt more fresh and had a more defined identity than a mish-mash of different Black Ops games from the past. It’s not so much that I am looking for more content, but more depth and conviction in some areas of the game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will get a beta starting on October 2nd ahead of the game’s full release on Friday, November 14th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.
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