As first impressions start to come in for Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, a reader blames Activision for the negative reaction and lack of innovation in the franchise.
There’s been bad vibes about Black Ops 7 since it was announced. I’m not clued into the fandom enough anymore, to know how they knew it was going to be a dud, but apparently they were right because the early feedback about the campaign are that it’s absolutely terrible. Worse than Modern Warfare 3, which I wouldn’t have thought was possible.
You don’t have to pay for the games anymore, if you have Game Pass, so maybe people have got more comfortable with criticising them, but it’s not good timing for Activision when you’ve Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders breathing down your neck.
Both games seem newer and fresher than Call Of Duty, which is ironic because Battlefield as a series is actually older, but the new game has got people excited and that’s something that’s definitely not happening with Black Ops 7.
The obvious problem with Call Of Duty is that it’s the same thing every year. There’s all these sub-franchises and one-off games but at the end of the day everyone knows exactly what they’re getting with a Call Of Duy and they’re never surprised. And for a long while it didn’t seem like they even wanted to be, as the only games that did anything even slightly different, like Infinite Warfare, were hated by fans.
But that was nine years ago and it feels like they’ve had enough. Black Ops 7 is the second Black Ops in a row and a sequel to Black Ops 2, as if it’s purposefully trying to look as out of ideas as possible. There’re no new ideas or features in the game, that I’m aware of, and yet it’s full price and full of AI slop, according to reports.
All that money and they can’t even be bothered to pay an artist to make some calling cards. Instead, they all look like Studio Ghibli artwork, for some reason. Seriously, take a look at it, it’d be funny if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re trying to make you pay for this rubbish.
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I imagine it’ll take years for Call Of Duty to become not worth making but I think this might be the turning point, where it goes from the biggest game of the year, every year, to just another contender. I doubt Battlefield 6 or Arc Raiders will take its place completely but if they do it between them, or with other games, I think that’d be a lot healthier than one game being the biggest thing for nearly 20 years.
Activision has only got themselves to blame, anyway. All that time and money and they’ve never even tried to experiment. Remember that weird, experimental Call Of Duty where they threw in a bunch of new ideas to see if they’d work? No, neither do I, because it never happened.
The plan was apparently to just sit there, doing the same thing forever and when it all collapsed, as it must do for anything, I dunno… I guess the CEO retires and the poor developers all get booted out or replaced with AI. They don’t even have any other franchises on the go either, so there’s literally nothing to replace it. I think it must be years since Activision published anything that wasn’t Call Of Duty.
The lesson here seems pretty obvious: don’t put all your eggs in one basket and don’t get complacent. Nothing lasts forever and while people will always want to play at soldiers that doesn’t mean they want to play your versions of soldiers.
It seems clear that people are going to play Battlefield 6 for a Call Of Duty like experience, but better, and then Arc Raiders for something that’s a bit different. Sounds like a win all round to me: gamers get more interesting new games and Activision, and publishers at large, get shown they can’t keep doing the same thing forever, especially if they start taking fans for granted.
By reader Hammeriron
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