Black Ops 7 is the freshest Call of Duty in years with campaign co-op, zombies nostalgia, and minimal SBMM

Before I start talking about Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, there is something I need to get off my chest. I do not like it when the Call of Duty franchise goes futuristic. Just as a general stance, I’m not a particular fan of sci-fi. The more futuristic aspects that the series likes to veer into from time to time somehow hit the ‘off’ switch in my brain in ways I can not understand.

When Black Ops 7 was first unveiled, I let out a long, heavy sigh. The writing was on the wall that futuristic gameplay was back on the menu. The campaign for Black Ops 6 was very heavily rooted in the 90s, but it was clearly a setup to bridge the gaps in what was to be considered the canon narrative between Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 3.

It was inevitable that Black Ops 7 would have to find a way to niche itself somewhere into a near-future timeline in order to work with the narrative Treyarch and Raven Software were building. I was, at least, prepared for it to happen.

You likely scrolled past the score to get to this part of the review, so I’m sure it is confusing to read about how much I dislike futuristic COD timelines, knowing I’ve given Black Ops 7 such a high rating. The truth is, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is such an ambitious and meticulously crafted experience that even my robot-adverse heart was softened by it.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 | Launch Trailer (PC Features Spotlight) - YouTube

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — Campaign

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a direct sequel to last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. But despite the continuation of the storyline that was originally set in motion by 2012’s Black Ops 2, the tandem titles add to the Black Ops narrative in very different ways. Where BO6 leaned heavily into the spy-themed action genre, Black Ops 7 counters by taking a more psychological horror approach.

Raven Software, the studio responsible for the narrative of Black Ops Cold War, Black Ops 6, and Black Ops 7, has managed to draft a story that weaves together multiple loose threads created from the past to create something meaningful. Set in 2035, the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 center on Specter One, a team of JSOC operatives headed by David Mason (Milo Ventimiglia).

Black Ops 7 opens with a broadcast from the series antagonist Raul Menendez, whom Mason believed he had killed previously as an act of revenge. The broadcast has Menendez laying claim to a rash of attacks across the globe, with plans for more in the days to come. A global tech conglomerate known as The Guild, headed by Emma Kagan (Kiernan Shipka), declares the videos of Menendez to be authentic. Kagan positions The Guild as a protector for the globe at a time when governments are failing to do so, as evidenced by the onslaught of attacks.

Mason’s investigation into the Cordis Die broadcast from Menendez leads to the JSOC team being infected by the Cradle, a pathogen developed by Black Ops 6 antagonists, the Pantheon. The purpose of the pathogen was to create enhanced “super soldiers”, but the red smoke ultimately caused hallucinations and other negative side effects that made it better suited for psychological warfare than anything else. The exposure to Cradle by Specter One leads to the team having shared psychosis and hallucinations of nightmarish events.

This leads to one of the biggest shake-ups in Black Ops 7’s gameplay. Call of Duty titles typically feature corridor sequences that lead to large arenas for bigger battles, that funnel back to smaller corridors — rinse and repeat until the end. There have been a few over the years that introduce features like semi-open world maps for campaign missions, but Black Ops 7 takes a hard left here, throwing the player into unexpected scenarios with nearly every mission.

Because Raven opted for the concept of shared psychosis and nightmares, the team had the freedom to fully make Black Ops 7 feel like something new and fresh. One moment you’re clearing warehouses of military grade bipedal robots, and the next you’re being chased by literal nightmares with fear itself personified as fleshless zombie-like humanoids.

It’s a wild ride that all comes together in the brand-new Endgame mode, where up to 32 human players in eight squads of four descend into the world of Avalon — a massive map that pieces together recognizable points of interest from all Black Ops titles. Endgame is effectively a love child of Infinity Ward’s abandoned open-world PvPvE experiment, DMZ, and Sledgehammer Games’ Modern Warfare Zombies modes (more commonly referred to as MWZ).

On the surface, I can appreciate what Treyarch is doing with the introduction of Endgame. It’s a clear effort to give Campaign-only players something to come back for, and the addition of campaign progression with its own track of weapon camos, calling cards, and dark ops unlockables certainly helps with all that. However, Avalon does still fall under some of the same struggles that plagued MWZ and DMZ both. While there are towns and locations on the map with plenty of enemies to tackle, there are large swaths of land that feel too empty and lack anything interesting.

I have one other beef to hold with Endgame, and that’s the lack of innovation in events at launch. Many of the fear and psychosis related interactions are ripped so closely from MWZ that it was almost shocking. I’m one of the first people to roll my eyes when someone makes a comment that yearly COD titles are reskins, but Endgame definitely isn’t beating the allegations with some of these encounters.

In one event, my team went into a building that was encased in vines and had to shoot evil flower heads, which triggered a mimic to spawn. This is a challenge that was very heavily used in MWZ, only instead of flower heads, players shot pustules from the walls.

That’s not to say that I dislike Endgame, but the lack of new ideas for the mode that’s already so similar to two other modes that are still available does make me worry about its staying power. Treyarch and the remaining teams are going to have to rely heavily on post-launch support of new features and ideas for Endgame if it is going to have any sort of staying power.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — Multiplayer

Multiplayer is my zone, and I am so glad that the Call of Duty team has listened and learned after the post-launch struggles of Black Ops 6. Team RICOCHET’s efforts to bolster Call of Duty’s proprietary anti-cheat system are off to a successful start. I’m far less likely to come out of an engagement in Black Ops 7 feeling like the battle was not a fair fight.

The success of a good match isn’t just reliant on the removal of cheaters, though. Map design, weapon balance, score streaks — all of it goes into making a well-rounded multiplayer experience. Treyarch and the studios that provided support for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 have absolutely knocked it out of the park. In part, I think the virtues of Black Ops 7’s multiplayer are due, in part, to the willingness of Treyarch to listen to the community while also being more transparent about the development process behind the game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 | Launch Multiplayer Maps Flythrough - YouTube

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In previous interviews with Treyarch leadership, the team was very open about the importance of feedback for multiplayer. But Black Ops 6’s post-launch seasons felt like the community was fighting an uphill battle for changes. Cheating was rampant, the map offerings left something to be desired, and we’re not even going to get into the ridiculous number of cel-shaded skins. By the end of its life cycle, Black Ops 6 felt more frustrating than fun to play.

Black Ops 7, however, feels like it is breathing new life into multiplayer. The developers have clearly danced on a razor’s edge to balance the desire to create the multiplayer experience that the team envisions while still meeting the player base in the middle.

Treyarch has finally ceded some ground to the community, limiting SBMM to one specific mosh pit playlist, while all the others are now prioritizing ping instead of skill. Prior to Black Ops 7, I was firmly in the camp that SBMM was a necessary evil for a balanced multiplayer experience. But after having played open playlists in BO7, I have found that even I question if the SBMM algorithms of the last few Call of Duty titles weren’t just a little too strict, after all.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s multiplayer experience is a breath of fresh air after the last year. At launch, the carousel of available maps offers plenty of variety while staying true to the three-lane map design that Treyarch excels at. While I am a fan of the small map playlists, in general, I find that the core 6v6 maps offered with Black Ops 7 are designed better overall, lending themselves to plenty of opportunities for quick engagements while utilizing enough verticality and long sight lines to provide play style variety for the community.

For as much as the core Multiplayer experience has right, the newly added Skirmish mode is surprisingly lacking. When I was first introduced to Skirmish, the 20v20 multiplayer mode that is seemingly a response to the rise of Battlefield 6, the maps featured a multitude of activities where players could put the new movement mechanics, like the wing suits and wall jumps, to good use.

Somewhere during the development cycle, the Call of Duty team decided to strip the excess from Skirmish and left behind a simpler gameplay loop. Various control points spawn on the map, and teams can either group together to take them one by one or break apart into smaller teams to capture as much as possible as fast as possible. The final gameplay loop is more enjoyable than Skirmish’s earlier iterations, but the mode only features two maps at launch and risks running stale. Especially considering there are so many other modes that are better ways to spend your time with BO7.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — Zombies

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s zombies — thy name is nostalgia. In recent years, I learned that there’s a large section of the Call of Duty community that has a lot of love for Black Ops 2’s unique take on Zombies. Dubbed TranZit, the mode featured a large-scale map with a variety of smaller arenas linked together that players had to traverse with a cobbled-together bus.

The love of TranZit clearly inspired Black Ops 7’s Ashes of the Damned, which brings back the oval-shaped map design of several arenas connected by a treacherous fog. The bus driver, TEDD, has also returned, but the bus has been replaced with a farm truck named Ol’ Tessie. Players have to complete a few quests to get Ol’ Tessie up and running, but once they do, they can rely on her to travel between zones and to serve as the de facto fifth squad mate.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 | Zombies Characters and Story Intel Drop - YouTube

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Ol’ Tessie offers some fresh gameplay experiences for Zombies, but I still find myself drawn more to the Survival mode, which allows you to play on condensed versions of the Ashes of the Damned maps. These bite-sized experiences crank up the tension because of the tight conditions of such a small play zone, while the introduction of zombified bears as threats ratchets up the risk of each round much earlier in a session.

Like with Multiplayer, the Call of Duty team has taken feedback for Black Ops 7’s Zombies mode to heart, making adjustments to the behavior of late-round threats and balancing the gameplay to be more fair while keeping the threat level high enough to create tension.

Unfortunately, the Zombies team repeated one of my least favorite decisions from Black Ops 6 with the decision to time-gate the directed mode until the launch of season 1. Call of Duty has historically been a shining star for accessible gameplay efforts, and zombies’ Directed Mode increases the approachability and accessibility of a pillar in the game that can be daunting for many to attempt. Time-gating content that can improve playability is an odd choice that the Zombies team just can’t seem to let go of, unfortunately.

While we wait for Directed Mode for Ashes of the Damned to be released with Season 1, at least the second zombies mode — Dead Ops Arcade 4 — launches with settings for casual players. The return of the former-easter-egg-turned-pillar-of-the-franchise is a highlight for me. Dead Ops Arcade has long been an in-house passion project, and it’s nice to see the top-down Zombie arcade mode get the love it deserves with Black Ops 7.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 — Final thoughts

To say that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is an accomplishment would be an understatement. The teams at Treyarch, Raven, and the other studios supporting this massive launch have pulled off a miracle. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, despite its post-launch missteps, was an impressive title that pulled no punches at launch. It was going to be a tough act to follow, but somehow the Call of Duty team has surpassed my expectations.

Call of Duty is regularly criticized as being formulaic, and the idea that it is the same game re-released with a new skin each year is prevalent. If any year should see those criticisms ring true, it would be when two titles are released in back-to-back years for the same series developed by the same teams. And yet nothing about Black Ops 7 feels formulaic.

Each new experience in the game feels fresh, and you genuinely never know what the next moment will have to offer you. One minute, I’m outrunning threatening zombies in an old farm truck as I race to the diner. The next, I’m floating through the air in a wing suit, chasing mysterious red butterflies. And then I’m piloting a helicopter in a side-scrolling collectathon before I go rack up some score streaks in multiplayer.

I’m awestruck by the variety, depth, and careful craftsmanship that have gone into Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and I'm optimistic that this is going to be a good year.

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