Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 review – stuck in the past

Activision’s juggernaut shooter is back, but can it overcome a weak campaign to counter the rising success of Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders?

Call Of Duty’s omnipresence in popular culture has made it practically impervious to reviews over the past decade, but some cracks are starting to show. Fan complaints around the direction of the series, between inappropriate skins and the growing intrusion of microtransactions,  have started to ring louder. At the same time, competitors like Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders are enjoying the sort of buzz Activision’s shooter used to generate a decade or so ago. 

The latest instalment, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, will undoubtedly sell millions of copies, but it is an underwhelming resell of what we’ve seen countless times before – just at a time when the franchise has never looked more vulnerable. The same solid foundation which has maintained Call Of Duty’s dominance for decades is still intact, but coming off the impactful innovations in last year’s Black Ops 6, this sequel feels like a rushed follow-up that’s lacking in meaningful additions.

In the case of the co-op campaign, the additions can be detrimental too. We’ve already written at length about the campaign – an incomprehensible deluge of drivel pitched as a sequel to Black Ops 2 – so we won’t repeat ourselves too much. To summarise though, it is one of the worst campaigns in the series. A poorly designed patch job stitched together from the bones of Zombies, Warzone, and a new 32-player extraction mode oddly gated behind its completion.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 Endgame verdict

Activision’s recent decision to untether this Endgame mode from the campaign feels like an acknowledgment of its failure to combine the two experiences. In isolation though, the Endgame works as a decent, sedate, spin on the extraction genre, in comparison to the franchises’ past efforts with Warzone’s DMZ – which threw in enemy players alongside AI foes. 

Endgame is a PvE experience, and while it does lack tension without the competitive aspect, it works as an accessible entry point for the concept. In each round, you’re dropped into the massive new Avalon map (set to arrive in Warzone next year), which is gated into four zones of escalating difficulty. Your primary goal is to increase your combat rank and acquire skills to progress through the zones, whether by gunning down clusters of enemies or completing objectives. 

If you escape through a ship before the timer runs out, your rank and gear will carry over to the next round. However, if you die, you’ll lose everything and have to start from scratch. There is a final boss to aim towards, and Endgame-specific camos to unlock, but its slower pace works as a surprising draw in the context of the overall multiplayer suite. If not a headline attraction, it’s a pleasing refuge when you fancy a break from the stop-and-pop chaos elsewhere. 

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 multiplayer verdict

If Black Ops 7 succeeds at anything, it’s in the breadth of its multiplayer. All the usual suspects return – Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, Domination, Hardpoint, Gunfight, etc.  – along with two new modes. Overload is the best of the two, a 6v6 ruckus where you have to grab a device from different locations and place it in one of the enemy drop zones for points. It’s similar to a traditional Capture The Flag mode, only far more aggressively paced, within smaller maps and somewhat reversed – as you have to push into enemy territory to find the drop zones. 

Overload is a haywire encapsulation of Call Of Duty at its best, and the greatest addition in Black Ops 7, but the other new mode has merit too. Skirmish is a 20v20 battle where you fly in from the skies and complete objectives (mostly capturing zones) for points against the opposing team. It’s a fun expansion of the Hardpoint concept, and the larger maps provide more strategic options for holding down turf, but it does feel too familar to leave any big impression.

The Zombies portion is similarly stuffed with content, although not always to its benefit. Ashes Of The Damned is the main draw, where you navigate a sprawling, interconnected map to complete objectives as you fend off the undead. It’s an evolution of the large scale Tranzit map from Black Ops 2, as you travel between locations in a pick-up truck, named Tessie, which you can upgrade with turrets as you explore and restore power to each respective area. 

If you prefer your Zombies scaled down, Black Ops 7 brings back Survival maps for the first time since Black Ops 2 (a recurring theme, with three of the multiplayer maps also returning from the 2012 shooter). For anyone who remembers Call Of Duty Zombies before it became a blockbuster campaign in of itself, it’s a pleasing throwback to when you only had to survive in one confined area for as long as you can. 

The Zombies variations don’t stop there either, with Cursed offering a hardcore take devoid of guiding markers, while the top down twin-stick shooter spin-off, Dead Ops Arcade, makes a return for the first time since 2020’s Black Ops Cold War. The latter lacks depth to justify its lengthy runs, with over 80 levels in total, but it’s a welcome distraction nonetheless. If anything, multiplayer wise, Black Ops 7 feels like a greatest hits of Treyarch’s work across the series so far.  

It’s the small adjustments in Black Ops 7 which help bind these separate strands into a more satisfying, adaptable package overall. Incredibly, for the first time in Call Of Duty history, there’s unified progression across every mode – so you can unlock weapons and perks for use across the entire multiplayer suite, even if you just hammer on Zombies for hours. Similarly, after years of fan outcry, skill-based matchmaking has been made optional, with the majority of playlists now allowing you to team-up in lobbies with players of all skill levels. 

If taken at face value, Black Ops 7 is a tremendous amount of game – on the multiplayer side, it could even be the most robust ever. Yet, there’s a nagging staleness to it. Last year’s Black Ops 6 took a notable stride with omnimovement, allowing players to sprint and dive in any direction. The same mechanic returns in this sequel with the addition of a wall jump, so you can springboard off surfaces to climb to higher vantage points. 

While it does conjure up openings for surprise attacks through windows, and some impressive leap-frogging across the environment, it feels like a novelty gimmick when compared to the addition of omnimovement. Some maps are designed around it to some degree, like the standout Japanese-themed Den and The Forge, but it rarely feels essential and – more often than not – leaves you open to gunfire when you’re scuffling off walls. 

For all its streamlined polish in terms of progression, Black Ops 7 still continues the modern Call Of Duty tradition of being an inelegant headache in its presentation. Each menu is a smattering of icons and cycling daily challenge windows, where gross AI-generated calling cards clash with sterile widgets and flashy CG models. For all its presumably limitless budget, Call Of Duty has a charmless tackiness to it when you’re outside of matches. 

Black Ops 7 might be impressive as a value proposition thanks to its refined and comprehensive multiplayer, but it’s also one which feels like last night’s reheated dinner. New additions like Overload and Endgame might be enough for some to make the investment again, but this tepid new entry is all too content with dredging up the past glories of Call Of Duty without offering any kind of substantial evolution.

Formats: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC
Price: £69.99
Publisher: Activision
Developer: Treyarch and Raven Software
Release Date: Out now
Age Rating: 18

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