Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 appears to have had a weaker launch than its predecessor, as the sequel lags behind in Steam player count numbers.
Activision launched Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 earlier this week, and the game appears to already be landing itself in a spot of controversy.
Steam players have already marked the game down for poor design, performance issues, as well as the apparent inclusion of AI generated art appearing for many of its in-game assets.
Despite how massive each Call of Duty launch week feels, it’s certainly clear that players haven’t taken too kindly to Black Ops 7’s release. And the player numbers seem to also be reflecting this.
On Steam, Call of Duty has managed a peak of 94,245 players since Black Ops 7 launched. These numbers come from SteamDB, which uses public data grabbed directly from Valve’s servers, so it’s the most accurate tool we have in terms of calculating this data for now.
Compare this to last October when Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launched, where player numbers reached around 300,000 in the month of October.
Obviously, there’s a few other things to consider. For starters, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is also available on Xbox and PlayStation, where the player count is likely to be dramatically higher.
There’s also the fact that the game is available to play on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which is available on both Xbox consoles and PCs. Many people will also be playing it here.
Call of Duty lags behind Battlefield 6 and ARC Raiders
Even keeping this in mind, it’s as clear as day that the Steam launch of Black Ops 7 hasn’t moved the needle as dramatically as the previous entry did.
And it’s entirely possible that recent hit successes like Battlefield 6 and ARC Raiders may be eating into the long-time franchise’s popularity.
Battlefield 6, which is now just over a month old, still has a 24-hour peak of 290,411 players on Steam. ARC Raiders, on the other hand, currently has a peak of 449,610 players in the same period.
With so many FPS games and so little time to play them, it’s obvious that fans are going to choose the game that appeals most to them.
And with the various issues people have with this year’s Call of Duty release, it seems Battlefield 6 and ARC Raiders has disrupted Activision’s plans of having the commanding shooter of the season.
