Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 [REVIEW] – Fun, Flawed, but Full of Content

Call of Duty has been on a yearly march for two decades now, and as someone who has played every single one, I’ve seen the series hit some truly dizzying highs… but also some very questionable lows. Black Ops 7? It sits somewhere in the middle – packed with content, often exciting, sometimes frustrating, but definitely showing the strain of being a back-to-back Black Ops release (especially in the campaign department). There’s plenty of fun to be had here thanks to strong gunplay, fantastic Zombies offerings, and solid multiplayer, but it’s also dragged down by one of the most uneven and awkwardly implemented campaigns the series has put out in years.

Check out some screenshots down below:

I wish I could say the campaign continues the momentum of last year’s excellent Black Ops 6 story, but unfortunately, Black Ops 7 stumbles pretty hard right out of the gate. It’s billed as a direct sequel to Black Ops 2, which is one of the most beloved campaigns in the whole series, but you’d barely know it from how the story plays out. The narrative feels stitched together from ideas and leftovers rather than built with intention, with missions jumping between surreal hallucinations, re-used content, and quick nostalgia nods that don’t always actually lead anywhere. As someone who has played through every Black Ops story multiple times, even I struggled to make sense of who was doing what and why… it’s a real shame, especially since there was some real momentum with the storytelling go into this.

One of the biggest issues within the campaign is the lack of any real set piece moments. Call of Duty campaigns normally deliver jaw-dropping moments or gut punch twists that really get the player fully engrossed in the experience, but Black Ops 7 just… doesn’t. There’s no ‘oh my god’ scene that keeps your eyes glued to the screen or late-game reveal that pulls all of the threads together, with it ending about as abruptly as it begins. The pacing just isn’t there.

A lot of this comes down to how the missions are structured, with most of the campaign taking place on Avalon, a large map that clearly wasn’t built with a traditional story in mind. These missions technically let you roam a bit, but they all look and feel the same, following the same kind of structure that just gets a little tired the longer you play. The handful of classic-style missions offer better pacing and variety (and stood out as some of the best moments of the campaign), but they’re sprinkled in too lightly to lift the whole thing up. It’s not that it’s awful at all because it does have some really cool moments, but it just feels like the execution isn’t fully there.

“Thankfully, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 isn’t defined by its weakest link, with multiplayer still fast, fun, and packed with variety, and Zombies the star attraction, offering a mode bursting with creativity, atmosphere, and reasons to keep coming back for more.”

The added co-op focus is part of the problem, with up to four players able to run through the campaign together. On paper, this sounds great, and it makes some of the design choices make sense. However, it also brings with it additional problems – you can only play the campaign online (meaning any network errors will kick you out of a mission), there’s no pausing (even when playing solo), difficulty is determined by the number of players in the game, and there are no checkpoints if you decide to quit a mission and return later. Yeah, it’s hard not to feel a little frustrated by the design choices, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that the campaign wasn’t built with traditional Call of Duty storytelling in mind. The shooting itself is fantastic and the moment-to-moment gameplay is full of thrills, don’t get me wrong, but the framework around it makes this the weakest campaign the series has put out in quite some time.

It is worth noting that beating the campaign unlocks Endgame, a PvE extraction-style mode that feels like a hybrid of ideas from across the game’s multiple modes that builds upon the storytelling of the campaign. You drop into Avalon, complete objectives, collect loot, upgrade your character, and try to exfil without dying… pretty straight forward. It’s a decent distraction too, and it works better with a squad, but it never really sinks its claws in like the other multiplayer modes of Call of Duty do. Without PvP or any standout mission design, it lacks the tension and unpredictability that extraction modes like this usually thrive on, and whilst it’s clear this mode has room to grow, it feels like an extra layer of content rather than something essential. It’s nice to see that the shift in campaign design does bring with it some ideas that do have a lot of potential, though.

Whilst Black Ops 7’s campaign offering is a little lacklustre, multiplayer helps pull the whole game back up. The near-future setting has given Treyarch plenty of room to be playful, and the result is a fast and energetic experience that’s easy to fall back into if you’ve been playing Call of Duty for years. Movement is a highlight thanks to the wall jump returning from Black Ops 6, now refined and more flexible, with it adding clever new angles and escape routes without turning matches into pure chaos (although that certainly will happen on some of the smaller maps). Gunplay is as tight as ever, and the futuristic gadgets and score-streaks are a ton of fun to experiment with, giving players plenty to get stuck into to keep matches exciting. The map selection at launch is great too, with a wide range of environments – from neon-drenched city streets to snow-covered forests under the Northern Lights – to battle across. It gets all of the basics right, and with plenty of game modes on offer (including the newly introduced Overload and Skirmish), there’s a lot here to keep players hooked in for hundreds of hours.

There has been a bold change made to the multiplayer:  the return of classic matchmaking, with far less emphasis on skill-based matchmaking. This means more varied lobbies, more unpredictability, and an overall experience closer to older Call of Duty games – this won’t suit everyone, but it brings an exciting shift to the experience that will definitely keep players on their toes (or pulling off mad kill-streaks).

Check out some screenshots down below:

It is worth noting that there have been a few technical problems reported within the multiplayer at launch, but if I’m being honest, they’ve been quite limited for me. I’ve had a few oddities, sure, but nothing game-breaking or consistent enough to be problematic. It might be a platform-specific thing, but things have been alright on the PlayStation 5 for me thus far.

The multiplayer action is undoubtedly strong then, and makes up for the lacking campaign. For all its strengths though, there’s no doubting that Black Ops 7’s Zombies mode is where it really shines. Ashes of the Damned is a huge and atmospheric map with multiple interconnected points of interest and a unique twist: Tessie, an upgradeable truck that acts as both transport and your Pack-a-Punch machine. I absolutely loved its inclusion, with it not only adding mobility to the larger scale environment but also an added level of tension, with players constantly having to decide when to stay and when to make a break for the next zone before enemies overrun the roads. Honestly, it ramps up the personality of the experience so much, and when played with a group of players that can really pull together and work as a team, it makes for such an exciting time.

Add in all of the quirks of the map (that I’ll leave for you to discover), new enemy types that’ll  completely shake up what you’re used to, and plenty of nods to older Zombies maps, and you’ll quickly find that Black Ops 7’s Zombies gives both newbies and long-time fans plenty to. A dedicated Survival mode is also available, carving out sections of the big map to play more classic round-based matches – it’s perfect for solo players or anyone who wants quick runs that feel just like the old-days. Add to that the Dead Ops Arcade 4 that offers chaotic top-down action for rapid-fire fun, and it’ll be easy to see that Zombies is the most polished, replayable, and arguably enjoyable part of Black Ops 7.

Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Platform(s): PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Website: https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/games/call-of-duty-black-ops-7/