It’s fitting that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 should drop near the end of the year. Poetic, even. Because in all these months of incredible experiences – discovering new worlds, embracing incredible new gameplay mechanics, taking on challenges – it’s easily the most miserable experience. Recycled, awkward, narratively bankrupt and downright insulting to one’s intelligence, it’s the prime example of a yearly cycle that can no longer sustain itself or has stopped trying to. It’s all the more depressing because even with my disdain for this product – and it feels designed to fit that descriptor and nothing else – there are parts that a diehard fan could enjoy, even if they feel creatively tired.
Well, it only makes sense to start from the bottom, so let’s dive into the Campaign, or as I’d like to call it, “Not even worth the cost of PC Game Pass.” Raul Menendez is back, except he isn’t – let’s dispel that right away. The actual villain is Emma Kagan, the CEO of the Guild, which was a criminal syndicate in Black Ops 6. David “Section” Mason is sent to investigate the Guild along with his team to find out if there’s any truth to Menendez’s revival, even as he battles the demons of his past. Oh, and Troy Marshall, the protagonist of last year’s edition, is also here.
After confirming that Menendez is in fact dead, Section and his team are dosed with The Cradle – yet another Black Ops 6 plot device which led to many hallucinatory shenanigans. Except in Black Ops 7, it drives the plot and mission design in monitor-punching fashion. The team must thus fight with it infecting their senses even as the Guild attempts to enact a dastardly plot that even Jerry Bruckheimer would balk at.
“No interesting set pieces or mechanics – heck, most of the cinematic moments unfold in actual cutscenes. Just go in, shoot things, and don’t ask too many questions or try to suffer too much brain damage.”
To cut to the chase, the dialogue and pacing are simply horrendous. Characters don’t converse naturally; even in terms of acting, they come across as phony and unbelievable. As for the actual story, it’s like I can hear the writers physically giving up while the higher-ups simply asked, “Why not?” when designing some of the worst missions the franchise has ever seen.
Open Combat missions but set in a barren Warzone-like map called Avalon, which also serves as the basis for the so-called endgame, but without any points of interest or side objectives? Giant entities as bosses, where the game outright tells you to “Shoot the hands” without even skipping a beat – because there is so little regard for the player’s intelligence or capacity to figure things out? Nonsensical plot contrivances that play hacky sack with any sense of plausibility, purely for the sake of inserting awkward platforming sequences and the barest of bare objectives that even Destiny blueberries would laugh at? A blanket “Why not?” to all of the above. You also get betrayed by the least interesting new character in the game, which is impressive considering the bar is somewhere below sea level alongside the finale.
No interesting set pieces or mechanics – heck, most of the cinematic moments unfold in actual cutscenes. Just go in, shoot things, and don’t ask too many questions or try to suffer too much brain damage.
Even if you could choke down this “plot,” there’s very little about the gameplay that shines. A “new” wall bounce mechanic is introduced and comes into actual play a handful of times. On most occasions, you’ll be standing in circles, gunning down approaching foes or activating terminals. There are some “puzzles” required for opening doors and whatnot, but other times, simply look for the power supply on the wall and shoot it. You would think that the Guild, which is so far ahead of JSOC at every given opportunity, might have taken to addressing any of these points while we were tripping out, but apparently not.
Guns are defined by their rarities, which is a nice way of saying you’ll be doing piddly damage without rifles and headshots. Oh, but this isn’t a looter shooter – the actual rarity of weapons is raised when progressing through the campaign, or upon discovering a station to upgrade one. Even then, the damage dealt by a Legendary in the third or second-to-last mission felt nothing like that of the finale. Enemies are also downright braindead, capable of gunning you down in close range and then forgetting you were there after running or flying past. You went invisible right in front of their faces? “Mission failed, guys, we’ll get ’em next time,” apparently.
“The problem, as always, is the netcode. I don’t know if it’s because the player count is abysmal or if it’s trying to prioritize PC players only, but most of my matches were marked as high latency. This resulted in the Call of Duty classic – enemies take multiple bullets to die, while lasering me down in just two.”
As a co-op campaign, it’s simply abysmal, but not being able to pause while solo or even quit while saving my progress due to the lack of checkpoints? Just…why? The missions themselves don’t take very long to complete, but if you’re disconnected at any point? Have fun restarting the entire mission again. And then somewhere, somehow, the marketing geniuses at Microsoft will be raising the prices of Game Pass again, blaming the service for eating into Call of Duty sales rather than actually examining why no one would pay full price for this mess. But I digress.
You would think that after such an embarrassing display, Treyarch and Raven Software would simply tell you to go ahead and uninstall it (like Battlefield 6, conveniently enough). Instead, they offer a new villain and the endgame, set in Avalon. If you’ve played Modern Warfare 3’s extraction shooter mode, it’s basically that. No, really. The undead are replaced by “Cradle” monsters who act (and in many cases, look) identical. The Guild does deploy some new units like a giant metal walker, but the vibe is killed even further when you realise it’s just an objective to interact with and, surprise, hold out against waves of enemies.
The overall progression loop has also been somehow dumbed down further. Rather than curating a powerful range of weaponry, your main objective is building Power. Simply complete objectives, gain Power, choose one of two character upgrades, repeat. In that sense, it feels more like a Destiny 1 Patrol Zone except with far less rewarding loot progression and far dumber enemies. There’s none of the tension of an extraction shooter and, more importantly, very little of the cooperation or community engagement that it should inspire, even with the lack of PvP. Also, whoever thought it was a good idea to throw the bullet sponge to end all bullet sponges during the extraction sequence needs to re-evaluate their life.
I could go on, even against my own will. Long story short, Black Ops 7’s Campaign sucks. You could probably find some fun in endgame, but it just feels so sterile and lacking in energy or enthusiasm, not to mention that it was done two years ago (and promptly abandoned despite serving as a separate mode).
Things slightly improve when we get to the multiplayer, key emphasis on “slightly.” The maps are definitely a step up from last year. Thankfully, newcomers like The Forge, Imprint and Blackheart feel distinct enough, striking a decent balance between size and sightlines. Even the places where you can wall bounce don’t feel egregious enough to become annoying or necessary.
Homestead is the one that really stuck out in terms of awkward layouts, but it still felt like a chaotic breath of fresh air from the typical three-lane setup when jockeying for supremacy in the main cabin. The problem, as always, is the netcode. I don’t know if it’s because the player count is abysmal or if it’s trying to prioritize PC players only, but most of my matches were marked as high latency. This resulted in the Call of Duty classic – enemies take multiple bullets to die, while lasering me down in just two.
“If you’re keen on a more traditional Zombies experience, there’s one – count ’em, one – Survival map available: Vandorn Farm. It offers a compact layout with more than a few secrets to uncover, but again, it’s just..fine.”
But it goes both ways. There are some places where I should have died and yet emerged with a handful of HP. When it’s not subject to these issues, time to kill doesn’t feel all that bad, though it’s still pretty fast. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of all the sliding around, especially with its lackluster penalties to accuracy. Weapon balance is also weird at present since snipers can quickly ADS and score a quick kill even when hitting you in the leg (depending on the build, of course). I wouldn’t criticize it all that much if I weren’t capable of simply copying someone else’s build and doing it in the next match, even with the annoyingly high latency, but alas.
At this point, I’m tired of complaining about spawn logic in this franchise, especially when dying multiple times in a row within seconds. Not as egregious as last year, but it’s still a thing, so be warned. Other features, from map voting and persistent lobbies to Specialities and the new Overclock, are welcome. While my biggest instinct is to go all Red Perks and try to gun down one enemy after another with Enforcer, I also found some enjoyment in all Green and gained more scores for objective-based play. It gave me some solace, especially when no one else wanted to gather the dog tags in Kill Confirmed.
Finally, there’s Zombies. I actually liked last year’s launch maps, even if the mode itself didn’t offer nearly enough to keep me hanging around. This year’s edition offers a new experience where you construct a Wonder Vehicle and drive around multiple interconnected locations, completing objectives, including installing a Pack-A-Punch machine into it. None of that stops you from hunkering down in a single location and fighting off the hordes, but you’ll miss out on other notable Perks. It’s…fine.
I don’t really like that any random person can just take the vehicle and ditch it in the pathways between locations before disconnecting or simply driving off, leaving the rest of the team stranded. Overall, however, the standard practice of surviving to get higher rarity weapons, then Pack-A-Punch them for more damage while upgrading armor and gaining new Perks, remains intact. The actual threats felt pretty barebones – the Zersa is a neat addition, but that’s more or less it in terms of anything interesting (I’m indifferent to the Ravagers).
If you’re keen on a more traditional Zombies experience, there’s one – count ’em, one – Survival map available: Vandorn Farm. It offers a compact layout with more than a few secrets to uncover, but again, it’s just..fine. There’s some enjoyment to be had from building trains and gunning them down or fully upgrading a Legendary Akita and tossing some Double Tap in to absolutely shred a Zersa. I would have liked faster research progress on their Augments, but while having such a wide range of options to customize your playstyle is nice, the fundamental gameplay remains the same. For some people, that may be more than enough, but it’s far from a sizable upgrade over last year (and those who hate this direction for Zombies won’t find anything to change their mind).
“As an overall package for $70? Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is simply embarrassing. A multi-billion dollar franchise and the best it can aspire to is “Good enough multiplayer” and “passable but unnecessary Zombies”?”
To summarize everything about Black Ops 7: Awful campaign, waste-of-time endgame, decent multiplayer plagued by some familiar issues and a overtly safe Zombies experience. If you love this series’ multiplayer, then, among all the new quality of life features, the above-average to good maps, and the sheer amount of unlocks, it may be worth checking out. If you must keep informed with the overall development of the Zombies lore, then it might be worth a gander, though it doesn’t offer anything fundamentally new or interesting over last year. If you want to play the campaign, a healthy reminder: Don’t. It’s not even worth the laughs or the decent art direction.
As an overall package for $70? Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is simply embarrassing. A multi-billion dollar franchise and the best it can aspire to is “Good enough multiplayer” and “passable but unnecessary Zombies”? I know it’s pointless to try to convince longtime fans not to take the plunge, or to even say that this is the franchise’s breaking point. But if the practice going forward is to release a new mainline Call of Duty and follow it up with an awful expansion-level addition, then I’m out.
This game was reviewed on PC.
