While everyone’s kicking Call of Duty these days, I really don’t want to sling mud at Black Ops 7. And not because we’re lazy, but because it’s an improved version of Black Ops 6—which is exactly what fans demanded from the developers.
It’s long been known that the Call of Duty series’ biggest problem is Activision itself. Driven by boundless greed, the company is dragging the series down with idiotic collaborations and a senseless—at least to players—unwillingness to completely abandon the Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) system, which even streamers on Activision’s payroll have begun to complain about.
And that’s the saddest part, because Black Ops 7 takes into account numerous mistakes from previous installments and feedback from still-loyal fans, and the developers at Treyarch are genuinely trying to stay in touch with the community not only through the Trello board, where they unilaterally report on patches, but also on social media.
The aforementioned SBMM system has migrated to Black Ops 7, making every match a one-sided affair: either your team wipes the floor with the opponent, or the opponent wipes the floor with your team. It’s certainly nice when the system works in your favor, but it’s equally frustrating when it backfires on the opposing team.
What’s changed is the number of matches it takes for the system to consider you’re having too much fun. In Black Ops 6, for example, the system could give you four or five games in a row where you felt like a true cyberathlete, while in Black Ops 7, SBMM brings you down to earth after just a couple of matches, pitting you against poor bastards with no life, who’ve only seen grass through the window of their sweat-stained room.
Fortunately, the developers took the beta’s experience into account and were clearly very worried about Battlefield 6’s popularity, which is why the release version featured two playlists: a standard one, where the SBMM system works at full capacity, taking into account a whole host of parameters to create a lobby (sometimes it seems that even height, weight, and blood type are taken into account), and an open one, where ping is primarily important.
It’s clear that most players rushed to the new playlist, which is why, even with a significantly weakened SBMM, most of the lobby resembles a real BDSM party, and you don’t know the safe word.
Another issue that Call of Duty fans were increasingly noticing was lobbies that would form exclusively for a single match and then disband afterward. While this might seem like a minor issue, back in the day, a group of players could play together for hours, match after match, map after map. You’d play against a pro in one match, and then that pro might end up on your team. You’d make friends, practice tactics and teamwork together, and eventually even start socializing outside of Call of Duty. After years of arrogantly ignoring fan requests, Activision has brought back this experience.
Ironically, Activision once explained temporary lobbies as a way to combat the unhealthy atmosphere that could develop over long sessions. The company allegedly had statistics showing that people didn’t leave lobbies if they were unfortunate enough to play against toxic players, but abandoned the game entirely. Considering how things turned out, Activision has been lying to us all these years. This never happened before, and now it’s happening again.
While Call of Duty was once heavily criticized for its futuristic setting—Infinite Warfare was drowning in negativity even before its release—futurism is precisely what’s been missing in recent years. Modern conflicts, World War II, and the Cold War have become tiresome, and the series is also reluctant to venture too far into the future. But Black Ops 7 offers exactly what many have long been missing: all those projection panels, screens, terminals, and scientific facility corridors—the levels look futuristic without being overly pretentious.
The standard level design, offering only three directions of movement at the start of a match—left, center, right—that’s been used in Call of Duty for years, hasn’t gone away. The developers have simply learned to hide it more effectively. However, in many locations, freedom of movement only seems to be a semblance, when in practice, you often run into invisible walls or simply don’t have time to leap to a higher position under a hail of bullets.
There are no locations that offer any significant advantage, where you can sit back and quietly rack up kills with a shotgun or sniper rifle. Treyarch strives to level the playing field as much as possible and avoid offending anyone.
The developers also didn’t build locations around the new system that allows players to jump by bouncing off walls. Parkour helps shorten some routes and gain a certain advantage when flanking enemies, but nothing radical. The developers clearly took into account the frustrations with jetpacks in Black Ops 3 and Infinite Warfare.
Players themselves don’t often take advantage of the game’s opportunities, preferring to navigate the map by sliding or making short jumps. Acrobatics aren’t particularly helpful in firefights either.
The new speedsters and equipment deserve special praise. A drone hive can cause serious chaos, especially if deployed during a control point capture – enemies will have a hard time dodging bullets and drones simultaneously. The active camouflage system clearly replaces the double agent from Black Ops 6. Once activated, the player becomes virtually invisible even at point-blank range until they start firing. Augmentation can not only increase the duration of camouflage but also make it reactivate even after firing.
The DAWG (Deployable Armored Weaponized Groundcraft) turned out to be an interesting speedster—a mechanical beast that moves slowly across the map, but carries a rapid-fire machine gun and is protected by thick armor. The DAWG, while clumsy, does a great job of bringing chaos to the battlefield.
The Gravemaker rifle deserves special mention. It allows you to see enemies through walls and shoot them from across the map, killing them with one hit. Its only drawback was the relatively long reload time before firing. Although many beta participants called it dishonorable and complained, the developers made no changes to it in the final version. Interestingly, few players use the Gravemaker in matches—apparently, almost everyone adheres to some unspoken code of honor.
One of the most interesting new features in Black Ops 7 is augmentations. Upgrading your gear—whether grenades or rapid-fire weapons—unlocks various improvements. Each rapid-fire weapon or piece of equipment has two augmentations, but only one can be active. For example, you can reduce the number of points required to call in a reconnaissance drone or give the drone the ability to dodge one missile, as well as a more durable hull. A fragmentation grenade can be made more powerful or its explosives can be packed into a lighter casing, allowing it to be thrown further.
A hybrid perk system was also added. All perks were divided into categories—red, green, blue—and to obtain a specialization, players needed to equip three perks of the same color, even if one of them was completely unnecessary. In Black Ops 7, the system was expanded, adding three hybrid perks, which require, say, two blue perks and one green one. Players now have far more options for customizing their operators.
Zombies fans will be pleased with the various new features and changes, such as the ability to exchange gum for points and extract the map solo without dragging the entire team down with you, as well as the simply huge map where the quartet of heroes find themselves after the events of Black Ops 6. Yes, much of the content here is from the sixth game, but given the storyline and the mode’s format, this was expected. There are just enough innovations to keep players from complaining too much, while still remaining familiar and balanced.
For longtime fans of Call of Duty’s zombie mode and its challenges, the developers have brought back its classic variation with a limited interface, a fixed starting weapon, and the old scoring system that forces you to conserve ammo and aim exclusively for the head.
Diagnosis
A vast arsenal, interesting speedruns, new progression, and decent maps—new year, new CoD. However, Black Ops 7’s multiplayer offers everything Call of Duty fans have been clamoring for for so long. The only problem is, the fanbase, for the most part, doesn’t care anymore.
Fierce debates rage online every day about which is better: Black Ops 7 or Battlefield 6? It’s a pointless comparison, as both games share only the ability to shoot each other and their abysmal single-player campaigns. Otherwise, these are two completely different shooters in terms of dynamics, scale, and feel—meaning there’s nothing to argue about.
