Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is finally here, but I wouldn’t say it lives up to any hype set by fans. Call of Duty is consistently one of the best values in gaming. You get a new one every single year and it’s a three-course meal. There’s a big campaign, a fast-paced multiplayer mode that is updated all year-round, and an addictive co-op offering, typically in the form of Zombies. It’s like getting three games in one for $70. Although some players only focus on one mode, there is a lot of content to keep someone occupied for a year. Black Ops 7 offers one of the largest packages in Call of Duty history, but unfortunately, some fans may wish that Treyarch had cut some of it out.
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 goes for quantity over quality this time around. Although some of it is serviceable or even good, there are a lot of warts all over this thing. It’s a game that gives fans so much of what they want, but lets others down in key areas. The campaign is a disaster and the multiplayer is fun, but held back by trying to be a people pleaser. The Zombies thankfully manages to once again be a stellar addition, but that leads to a somewhat inequitable Call of Duty bundle.
Rating: 2.5/5
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Satisfying gunplay and fast-paced multiplayer gameplay that highlights Call of Duty’s strengths | One of the worst Call of Duty campaigns to date |
| An addictive and expansive Zombies offering | Bogged down in trying to appease as many people as possible that it fails to do anything notably new |
| Treyarch listened to major criticisms that have plagued the series for years | Endgame’s potential is undermined by crashes and connectivity issues |
| AI rewards ruin any incentive to grind |
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s Story Takes the Series’ Single Player Offering to New Lows
Black Ops 7‘s campaign is one of the most expensive train wrecks I have ever seen. There was a lot of potential for this to be something really interesting as Treyarch and Raven Software opted to do a direct sequel to Black Ops 2. Set a decade after one of the best Call of Duty games ever, players fill the shoes of David Mason once more, but this time in a co-op adventure. Mason is joined by a mixture of new and familiar faces in an effort to take down The Guild, a powerful military tech company that appears to be behind the return of Raul Menendez, a cunning terrorist who brought global superpowers to their knees in 2025. However, more notably, Menendez was canonically killed by Mason at the end of Black Ops 2, so his return raises a lot of questions.
Tragically, the story is executed in a very sloppy way. Even when you disregard how tonally jarring and out of place this game feels for the Call of Duty series, Black Ops 7‘s campaign is a poor single-player effort for any game. It’s rushed, filled with diversions that lack any weight or depth, and is painfully dull. What could’ve been a compelling story about the dangers of AI and a wealthy tech CEO manipulating everyone for personal gain devolves into convoluted nonsense where the status quo remains intact. Call of Duty campaigns typically have a grand sense of scale that allow for almost apocalyptic stakes.
We’ve seen evil masterminds ignite World War III with catastrophic false flag operations, national monuments annihilated, harrowing incidents that rack up numerous civilian casualties, nuclear bombs dropped, and much, much more. Even when the heroes come out on top, the world is forever changed after the credits roll in a Call of Duty campaign. There is a sense of devastation or loss. The weight of war is palpable. That’s partially why the victories feel so triumphant.
You experience the lows by crawling out of a wrecked helicopter, taken down by the shockwave of a nuke, only to look up and see a mushroom cloud consuming the world around you before you die from radiation poisoning. You fill the shoes of a dad filming his family on vacation in Paris before they’re all killed by an exploding bioweapon. You watch Los Angeles get shredded by a drone attack. These dark moments are needed to make you feel the weight of what’s at hand and the highs of stopping the bad guy.
None of that is here in Black Ops 7 because, outside of one mission, you’re stuck in Avalon, the sprawling home of the next big Warzone map. It’s completely empty save for Mason’s 4-person squad, robots, and faceless goons. There are no civilians to save and no additional allies to team up with or mourn when they sacrifice their life. Everything feels weirdly hollow and more like a playground than a war-torn city.
The campaign also uses trauma as a central theme. Characters are drugged using a fear toxin-esque bioweapon that forces them to relive nightmare-ish versions of traumatic moments from their past. However, these moments feel cliché, and the game doesn’t give itself the runway to scratch below the surface because it has to move on to the next mission. There are interesting ideas posed around Woods and the Mason family, but the awkward, breakneck pacing of this story doesn’t allow you to sit with any of them.
By the end of the game, it doesn’t feel like anyone or anything has changed. There’s not even really anything to spoil because it’s all so one-note. The game’s biggest and maybe only real twist revolves around a character you meet in one mission and have no personal connection to, so it doesn’t make any kind of impact. It’s remarkably bad storytelling and absolutely fails to live up to Black Ops 2‘s storied legacy.
Black Ops 7‘s Campaign Is a Boring Slog to Play
From a gameplay perspective, Black Ops 7 is also a tremendous let-down. Treyarch and Raven have opted to make this a co-op experience that can also be played solo. However, the solo experience is bewildering. Although narratively-speaking, Mason is teamed up with 3 other characters, they do not appear in gameplay if a real person isn’t playing them. If you play by yourself, Mason is the only one with boots on the ground… but the other characters will still speak over the radio to give call-outs and act like they’re right next to you.
I theorize that AI companions were cut at some point in development, potentially because they weren’t able to keep up with all of the jumping around you do or be properly integrated into the open-world sandbox. Either way, it makes the campaign feel strange to play solo. However, I didn’t feel like the campaign made much justification for a co-op experience either. There aren’t many situations that require teamwork or some kind of collaborative experience. The co-op is really only helpful for taking down all of the enemies in your path, but that doesn’t feel like a strong enough reason to market it as a co-op campaign.
Black Ops 7 also continues the Warzone-ification of the entire Call of Duty landscape, adding in armor plating, weapon rarities, and loot boxes to the campaign. I could maybe get past this if it weren’t for the fact that enemies have become bullet sponges, complete with fat health bars. Call of Duty gameplay and AI aren’t designed for Destiny-like gameplay loops. Instead of having layered, interesting fights, almost everything you do just becomes a shooting gallery where you hold down the trigger until an enemy drops to the floor.
There are boss fights, but they are so repetitive and mind-numbing that they don’t scratch that itch I have for epic Call of Duty spectacle. Typically, you’re faced with a giant enemy and must shoot a glowing part of their body to properly hurt them or use some special attack that can deal extra damage. You do this once, they groan in pain and say some generic mean line, and then you rinse and repeat until they are dead. There’s nothing inventive, unique, or fun about this.
Call of Duty campaigns are generally enticing because of their variety. The bulk of the game is spent shooting random soldiers, but they are paired with interesting set pieces like shooting your way out of the KGB headquarters or breaking out of a Russian prison. Black Ops 7 pays tribute to some of these moments from past CODs, but doesn’t introduce any of its own new, iconic moments.
Those aforementioned missions are also typically broken up by placing you in the cockpit of an attack helicopter or having you stealth your way through irradiated fields to assassinate an arms dealer. The developers knew how to shake things up to keep the action fresh and exciting while moving the story forward. That’s just not the case with Black Ops 7.
The one thing I will give this campaign credit for is the fact that a lot of the various gadgets and powers you’re given, such as the grappling hook, are a joy to use. A few missions also integrate some light parkour sections that spice things up, but that’s as much variety as you get. These elements make navigating Avalon entertaining, but it’s not nearly enough to salvage the campaign.
Black Ops 7‘s Endgame Mode Has Potential, But Left Me Frustrated
Once you finish the campaign, Avalon opens up and lets you freely explore it with an operator of your choosing in Black Ops 7‘s RPG-esque mode known as Endgame. You run around the map completing random missions, leveling up your character with fun abilities, and everything you do earns progress for multiplayer and Zombies (the same is true for the regular campaign, as well). It’s a great way to level up your guns or work your way to prestige if you aren’t interested in competitive PvP. The catch here, however, is that it’s an extraction shooter.
If you die or disconnect from the match, you will lose all of your character’s progress. My friend was booted from the game twice in one weekend, causing him to lose all of his progress both times before we could fight the final boss. There was no way for him to rejoin or for the game to recognize he was booted and reinstate his progress. It was simply game over.
This also screwed me over because once he left, I had no one to help me with the mission we were on. We were fighting a horde of zombies, so after he was disconnected, they all focused their attention solely on me, and I was quickly swarmed. They formed a circle around me and beat me to death, with no one to revive me. I lost everything, all because the game kicked my friend out in a difficult zone of the map.
These infuriating issues aside, the missions you partake in aren’t particularly deep, but they are more of what I would expect from a secondary co-op mode. A lot of what makes the campaign weak is a strength to Endgame simply because it’s not as narrative-heavy and trying to string you from mission to mission. There is more freedom given to the player. If Treyarch sticks with this mode and updates it with meaningful content, Endgame could be a nice optional PvE mode. If not, fans probably won’t remember it in a few years. It will be left in the dust like Modern Warfare II‘s DMZ.
Black Ops 7‘s Multiplayer Is Frenetic and Fun, But Lacks New Ideas
The PvP multiplayer in Black Ops 7 is a fascinating case study. It’s largely what you want out of a Call of Duty online experience with punchy gunplay, fast-paced action, and a large assortment of great maps. It’s also a game that addresses major critiques that have loomed over the franchise for the last six years. Black Ops 7 finally toned down the skill-based matchmaking, removed disbanding lobbies, scaled back on annoying doors that disrupt flow, and is focused on curating an aesthetic that immerses players in the Black Ops universe without absurd crossover skins.
All of that is awesome, and I commend Treyarch for being able to implement so much of that. However, it is also a game that is clearly walking a very fine line. I noted this in my Black Ops 7 preview in August, but it feels like it’s trying to be a Call of Duty multiplayer for everyone. That means a lot of divisive ideas like tac-sprint are a perk, and wall-jumping doesn’t feel like it’s well-integrated in the moment-to-moment gameplay. You could theoretically avoid using it entirely.
There are a bunch of smaller yet still worthwhile additions, like being able to share gun builds with ease and overclocking gear, a new system that lets you alter and improve equipment like scorestreaks and gadgets. Still, Black Ops 7 lacks some big new idea to thrust the series forward.
There isn’t any big innovation like omnimovement, wall-running, or radical change of pace in the multiplayer. I don’t know what the big selling point or defining feature of this iteration is beyond reverting controversial choices and bringing back Black Ops 2 content. Nothing has evolved with Black Ops 7, and in many ways, it’s going backwards, even if that is for the better in some instances.
I am glad Treyarch is listening to fans on key aspects, such as how matchmaking works, but we still need to move forward. I understand the budget on a Call of Duty game is stupidly high, meaning you have to sell the game to as many people as feasibly possible for this to be profitable. But if you’re not going to innovate, why bother in the first place? The only thing worse than something turning out badly is it being boring and completely uninspired. I don’t want to see Call of Duty get stuck like a deer in the headlights because it’s afraid of upsetting its ravenous fan base.
My biggest fear is that if Black Ops 7 underperforms, Activision will reverse course on the changes to skill-based matchmaking and such. That is the wrong lesson to learn. That isn’t the problem with the game. But it also isn’t a reason to defend the game from rightful scrutiny. Great decisions can be made in a game that doesn’t hit the mark. That doesn’t mean everything needs to be thrown out next year. Learn the right lessons, keep the stuff that works, and make something big and bold that refreshes this series and keeps us excited!
The game is also hindered by the use of AI. I don’t believe that the use of AI in gaming is automatically heinous. It all depends on context and how it is being used. Black Ops 7, however, rewards players with AI calling cards for completing certain challenges. Why in the world would I grind or make an effort to accomplish something if the team behind the game couldn’t make the effort into designing the reward? People paid $70 for this game and hundreds of millions of dollars went into making it. The artwork in the game should reflect that. Instead, a bunch of calling cards have the same AI style and feel like a slap in the face to people who want to show off their accomplishments on their profile.
Black Ops 7 Zombies Is Yet Again a Call of Duty Highlight
Despite all of my critiques prior to this, it should come as no surprise that the Zombies team has once again done a bang-up job. Black Ops 7 features an expansive Zombies offering with a new map that serves as a homage to Black Ops 2‘s Tranzit. Ashes of the Damned drops players into a giant map that can be navigated with an upgradable pick-up truck, doubling as a mobile Pack-a-Punch machine. Using the truck, you move between different POIs, collecting different perks, weapons, and items to power yourself up.
My friends and I will often drive around, collecting whatever we need, and then hunker down in one spot and try to hold off waves of the undead or giant mutated bears. If things are getting too hot, we simply hop back in the truck and try to give ourselves some space to breathe. It’s a great new addition that completely changes the pace of Zombies without undercutting the tension and intensity of the mode.
If you’re looking for more of a challenge, Black Ops 7 has a new mode known as Cursed, which is an excessively hardcore Zombies experience. You don’t get a loadout, you have no mini-map, and the overall difficulty has been tuned to be much harder. It’s something aimed at longtime Zombies fans, specifically those who are well-versed in classic takes on the mode, and I can foresee it being a staple of the mode going forward.
Assuming that still isn’t enough for you, Dead Ops Arcade also makes a return. Players were surprised to discover this hidden mode in the original Black Ops, but it was a total delight. It’s an arcade-y take on Zombies with a top-down perspective and twin-stick controls. If you know it, you’ll be very familiar with the experience. There are some fun modifiers like being able to go into first-person, a side-scrolling helicopter mini-game, and more to shake it up from past iterations of Dead Ops Arcade.
All of these things prove why Zombies is so well-regarded by fans. It’s a labor of love that has a lot more flexibility with its creativity. It’s hard to imagine any fan of this mode being let down by what Black Ops 7 has to offer them.
Black Ops 7 Is an Uneven Game, Crumbling Under the Weight of the Franchise’s Legacy
The problem with Black Ops 7 is that it doesn’t take any swings. Everything is played safely and often as uninteresting as possible. It invokes the name and identity of one of the best Call of Duty games out there, but it fails to live up to that legacy. The campaign is a cobbled-together mess, the multiplayer is afraid to innovate at the risk of upsetting fans, and things generally feel stagnant. Even with a solid Zombies mode, there isn’t enough quality content here.
I am not writing this review to pick on Call of Duty or stoke any flames among shooter fans. I was a vehement defender of Black Ops 6 last year, even with some flaws. I’ve reviewed every Call of Duty since I started writing in 2015. No one is making me do this, I volunteer every year because I am excited to assess what the developers have in store.
I want this series to thrive because I look forward to it every single fall. I want my friends to get excited at the prospect of hopping on to run some matches. I want to have so much fun with it that I engage with Ranked Play. This is a franchise I love and care about. It’s not one I hate. I criticize it because I hope to keep playing new entries for years to come. But I need a reason to do so, and right now, I feel deflated.
However, as a fan, I recognize there have been some low points in this series, but those cycles are typically ended with awesome new innovative ideas. I hope Call of Duty 2026 is like a defibrillator and not only gives the series a second wind, but also revitalizes my love and enthusiasm for this franchise that I have been playing since I was 5 years old.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, and PC. A review code was provided by Activision.
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