Don't expect Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 to come remastered when they hit PlayStation consoles.

Call of Duty's scoring some easy goodwill points by bringing two of the series' most universally loved games to the PS4 and PS5 sometime next month. As developer Treyarch works with Iron Galaxy to make it happen, the company has now clarified what form the original Blops games will take.

Eurogamer reports that the upcoming ports are re-releases, not remasters, a point Activision supposedly emphasized to the outlet. Firm details are still up in the air, but next-gen graphics, new features, and sky-high framerates are likely off the table with this new distinction.

Remaster tags normally imply that some work went into jazzing up a game to add modern bells and whistles to it. With these being simply ports, you can more or less expect to play Black Ops and Black Ops 2 as they were on the PS3 and Xbox 360. However, Treyarch has promised that campaign, multiplayer, and zombies are included.

As Eurogamer also notes, the bigger question is whether these upcoming ports will use the same server infrastructure and lobbies as the PS3 version, which are infamously subject to hackers and cheaters nowadays. We should find out more as the re-releases approach their July release windows.

Until then, my best bet is that PlayStation owners will soon gain access to the same classics that Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S folks have been able to buy and play via the console's backwards compatibility program.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 DMZ devs have been "paying attention" to other extraction shooters like Arc Raiders, but think they've got them beat on "weapon feel."

The future of Compulsion Games, Double Fine, and Ninja Theory are unclear. There are reports this week that Xbox is in discussion to shutter all three legendary studios, and rumors that the teams responsible for South of Midnight, Psychonauts, and Hellblade could buy back their independence. At a time where both first-party creative houses – PlayStation Studios and Xbox Game Studios – have shown little hesitation in closing development houses, the idea that these three could walk away seems unlikely. And while no two situations are alike, it isn't unheard of. Just look at Toys for Bob.

"Toys for Bob was acquired by Activision in 2005, and for many years we enjoyed a long and successful partnership," says studio head Paul Yan, who took on the role following the departure of founders Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford in 2020. It wasn't long before Yan was steering Toys for Bob through one of the most challenging periods in its 30 year history. "Covid hit, and the world turned upside down. There were many changes that happened as a result. One was a corporate mandate [at Activision] to support the large blockbuster IPs – Modern Warfare, Warzone, and Overwatch 2, to name just a few."

Before the studio was drawn into the Call of Duty ecosystem, it was doing industry-leading work – breathing new life into the mascots that fuelled the imaginations of an entire generation of millennials. It spearheaded the burgeoning Toys-to-Life genre with the Skylanders series, "an original IP inspired by Spyro" before being given the opportunity to go a step further.

As Yan explains: "We spent time meticulously handcrafting the first three classic Spyro games for the Reignited Trilogy, and we really got an understanding of the character during this period. And then we moved on to Crash Bandicoot, breathing new life into that series with a sequel, as well as an experimental multiplayer spin-off with Crash Team Rumble." It's a period of prolific creativity, where Toys for Bob was able to leverage its growing confidence and expertise into long-overdue platformers.

And then the world changed. "We learned a lot after we shifted into a support structure to assist other teams with various initiatives, games, feature-sets, and updates. We spread into a lot of territories that we weren't familiar with, or at least hadn't spent a lot of time with. We're very proud of the work that we did there, and of all of the collaboration. But if we're being honest with ourselves, we knew that we were just straying too far from the games that we're passionate about – that we're known for. So at that time, in the back of our mind, we knew we wanted to get back to them somehow."

Soon, Activision began to change too. In 2022, as Toys for Bob was supporting Infinity Ward to get Modern Warfare 2 out the door, Xbox announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard King for $68.7 billion. Former Xbox CEO Phil Spencer went on record to say that he was interested in Toys for Bob dusting off older Activision IP, but nothing changed. As the deal closed in 2023, Toys for Bob were locked into supporting development of Overwatch 2 and Modern Warfare 3. Then the Xbox layoffs hit. One of the Toys for Bob studios was shuttered. A month later, it was all change again – the studio secured its freedom.

"In 2023, Microsoft was in the process of acquiring Activision. This was a long, drawn out process which gave us a lot of time to soul search – to ask ourselves, well, how can we get back to the games we're passionate about making? So we got in front of leadership at both the Activision and Xbox level," says Yan. "We proposed a really bold plan. We asked that Toys for Bob would buy back its independence – taking creative, financial and organization control – to spin-off into a separate company. One where we could get back to the games we were known for, and preserve the tight-knit team and the long tenure that we had built up over the years."

There was a major caveat in the proposal. Toys for Bob needed the security of knowing that it would immediately receive funding for a project. So if Toys for Bob was going to spread its wings, it was going to do it with Spyro: the character that had first freed it from the trap of making Disney licensing games with Activision back in the early 00s.

"The other half of the proposal was that the first game we would develop out of the game would be a new title for Xbox, and that it would be based on a concept that we had been stewing on ever since 2018," says Yan. "We learned a lot about Spyro in this time, and we had ideas on where the series could go and how we could evolve the character. So fast forward a bit, and leadership was very supportive of the move and of the game pitch. And for the last two years we've been quietly working on exactly that title: Spyro: A Realm Beyond."

Built in Unreal Engine 5, in development for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X, A Realm Beyond is in many ways a continuation of the iconic Insomniac era of games – with Toys for Bob leveraging everything it learned through remaking that trilogy and then pushing on beyond it. Given how eager Toys for Bob was to regain its independence, I was curious as to why the studio would draw such a hard line in the sand – that it would get what it wanted, only so long as Xbox funded the group as a third-party entity.

Granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation, multiple staffers at Toys for Bob have told me that it would have been 'near suicidal' to reenter the market without a project in active development, and that the arrangement works for everybody involved: the studio regains control of its future and a degree of security; Xbox gets to revive a legacy IP the community is desperate to see return with little risk; and that this could all ultimately lead to a fruitful partnership between the two in the future.

When I spoke with Xbox's executive vice president and chief content officer last week, Matt Booty didn't wholly shut down the question of whether third-party studios could be entrusted to revive other IP that the publisher has in the vault in the future: "I think the answer is there are options to do all kinds of things, and we're certainly looking at those all the time."

I did ask Toys for Bob associate creative director Lou Studdert why the studio went all-in on Spyro, rather than, say, Banjo-Kazooie, and he was clear about the studio's priorities. "Spyro has a deep place in the studio's heart. Having worked through Skylands and the Reignited trilogy, we've always admired that small but mighty underdog story of the character taking on these overwhelming odds – we see ourselves in that a little bit. And, honestly, it was also a no-brainer."

Yan adds: "Going independent meant taking a massive, massive risk. It's taking a bet on ourselves, but we had confidence in making that move [...] Reignited sold over 11 million copies, so there's an audience that showed up for the series."

As my time with Toys for Bob drew to a close, I asked Yan whether there was ever a world where the studio would have pursued independence without the Spyro sequel in place. "The proposal that we had was complex, and that was part of the equation from the beginning. That in order for us to pursue this, we would go independent. Is there a possibility that could have happened in some other alternate timeline?"

"I can't speak to that, but I can say that those two things together are exactly what we proposed," he says. "That Toys for Bob would spin off and have control over the types of games we wanted to focus on, and that Spyro would be number one."

Spyro: A Realm Beyond is set to release in 2027, although it doesn't have a confirmed release date. Toys for Bob may be developing the title as an upcoming Xbox Series X game, but it's also set to launch for PC, PS5, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Modern Warfare 4 is the Call of Duty I have been waiting all generation to play. It's a slickly produced first-person shooter that truly feels as if it is pushing at the boundaries of what this series can achieve when it's firing on all cylinders.

Activision has finally allowed its vast network of video game studios (who keep the gears of this annualized machine turning) to cease support for the PS4 and Xbox One, and the results are astonishing. There's a fluidity to the movement systems; weight to the weapon handling; a density of detail to the visual and auditory design that's apparent from the first kill to the last. You love to see it.

Jack O'Hara, the co-studio head of Infinity Ward and game director of Modern Warfare 4, believes the decision to leave last-gen systems behind has had a transformative effect on ideation and execution. "The processing power of the PS4 was great in its time, but it was starting to get in the way when it came to certain innovations. Support was making the development of new features harder, because you have to account for the differences between platforms."

"Console generations have been living for longer and longer, so we got better and better at optimization, but it does reach a point where you might be optimizing more than you're making something new. So, once you reach that threshold, you have to make the call," O'Hara adds. It's an exceptionally reasonable argument that has led to compelling results.

I'm told that Infinity Ward has engineered a lot of technology to deliver better balanced firefights. "Every shot should tell the truth" is a phrase I have heard more than once. Basically, there's a stronger alignment between bullet trajectory, weapon motion, and operator stance. Target visibility has been refined as IW introduces solutions to longstanding issues with bloom and depth of field. Weapons now make micro-adjustments as you push into tight spaces and begin to peek corners. It's wonderfully immersive, and feels utterly fantastic.

There's a control and a stability to the way that Modern Warfare 4 plays that simply wasn't present in Sledgehammer Games' disastrous Modern Warfare 3. Infinity Ward has effectively picked up from where it left off with MW2 in 2022. The recoil patterns and damage profiles are familiar, so too is the snappy TTK – though IW promises it's slightly less severe this time around.

"We are dialing in on the details to make that TTK feel consistent and strong," says Jacky Reynolds, multiplayer design lead. "One thing I'm really stoked about is that we made the TTK slightly longer at further ranges. If you played MW2, you probably felt yourself getting beamed across the map a lot. You'll feel that a lot less in Modern Warfare 4." Fighting at range requires more precision aiming than before, but Call of Duty is as lethal as it's always been once you're within sprinting distance of an enemy.

Consecutive Black Ops releases means Call of Duty has been saddled with hyper-mobility for two years. While I was certainly a fan of the omni-movement system within certain contexts, I was worried its introduction had defined a new direction for the wider franchise. IW has leveraged elements of this system to generate more fluid transitions around maps, and to give you new ways to change angles or adapt to pressure. So while you can't sprint, slide, or dive in any lateral direction like you could in BO7, you can now take advantage of backwards slides, mantle cancels, and faster climbing.

Combat Ready

I'm impressed with what Modern Warfare 4 is shooting for. I was able to play two multiplayer maps, and they are very in-keeping with the traditional Infinity Ward style – largely designed around three distinct lanes, promoting constant engagement and shifting momentums. There are some nice tweaks elsewhere too. The Riot Shield being reclassified as 'Equipment' and degrading through repeated use. There's now two Prestige paths, and IW is also very proud of a new Apex Attachment system – a set of unlocks that drastically transform a weapon's lethality and adaptability. Absurd incentives for weapon progression meet a more robust Gunsmith, enhanced customization, and a redesigned Create-a-Class system. There are more maps, modes, weapons, killstreaks, skins, and so it goes on and on.

All told, Modern Warfare 4 recalls memories of Call of Duty at its finest, albeit with a slick new-gen set of refinements, evolutions, and improvements. Beyond multiplayer, Infinity Ward has a lush campaign offering, following the exploits of Task Force 141 in the western hemisphere and a team of ordinary soldiers battling on the frontlines of a Korean war, and a returning DMZ mode that seems primed to take the fight right to Arc Raiders and Marathon. It's still early days, but I can't shake this feeling that Modern Warfare 4 couldn't have come at a better time for Call of Duty.

The series had clearly reached a breaking point. Back-to-back instalments of Black Ops and Modern Warfare titles created fatigue. Overbearing integration between mainline games and Warzone sowed frustration. There's a general sense that Sledgehammer and Treyarch (with three and two contributions this generation, respectively) haven't done enough to push the series forward – problematic as Arc Raiders, Battlefield 6, and a resurgent Overwatch offer competition elsewhere. But there's a quality to Modern Warfare 4 that is undeniable, and I'm desperate to play more.

Modern Warfare 4 is set to release on October 23 for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X. However, the new game for 2026 will no longer land day one on Xbox Game Pass.

Call of Duty studio Treyarch has confirmed that Black Ops 1 and 2 will escape PS3 jail with new PlayStation ports coming in July.

In a Wednesday tweet that closely followed a post from fan account PlayStation Game Size, which teased incoming news for the first two Black Ops games, Treyarch says, "It's official: the original Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are being ported to PlayStation in July, courtesy of our partners at Iron Galaxy."

In a reply, Treyarch adds: "Both will include Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies."

Iron Galaxy is a large studio with a long history as a support and co-developer between some original releases. It's been a staple of Activision Blizzard's lineup for a while, contributing to the likes of the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and Overwatch. It also worked on versions of Bethesda games like Fallout 76 and Skyrim, and big PlayStation games like The Last of Us or Uncharted as they came to PC. Most recently, Iron Galaxy handled Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4.

Treyarch's post suggests Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 will receive fresh PS5 ports in July, though PlayStation Game Size indicated both PS4 and PS5 were in the works. PS4 games are supported by PS5, so both would make sense.

The studio's wording may sound odd since the Black Ops series launched on PlayStation – that is, the PlayStation 3, third of its name – alongside PC and Xbox 360 in the 2010s. However, due to differences in backwards compatibility and legacy support, which are somewhat complicated by the new Call of Duty umbrella launcher used for modern games, the first two Black Ops entries are still stuck in PS3 jail, with no way to play them on PS5. Xbox fans can play the original 360 versions on Xbox One and Series X/S.

There are understandable questions about where these ports will be priced after all these years. Black Ops 1 still goes for $40 on Steam when it's not on sale, for reference. If nothing else, it's fundamentally good to see more games become more accessible and keep up with new platforms, especially some of the more formative Call of Duty installments.

Black Ops vet says his mystery PlayStation project wasn't a live-service game, and even if Sony shutting down his studio "f***ing sucked" he reckons it's just because "times change".

During Summer Game Fest, the annual Xbox Games Showcase brought us some very cool reveals – including the long-awaited Spyro: A Realm Beyond.

The upcoming Spyro game from Activision and Toys for Bob is the first big mainline entry in nearly two decades, and it's just as brilliantly vibrant as its nostalgia-inducing predecessors. In the new trailer, we see everything from bright purples to glowing oranges, green grasses to blue skies – you name it. It feels like a childhood fever dream in the best way, and I have a feeling that the developers wanted it to. They certainly weren't shying away from colors, anyway.

In a new online post, the official Toys for Bob account puts it best: "The world needs more radically joyful, colorful games," asking fans if they agree. I absolutely would.

The devs' statement here lines up well with what they recently said in an interview posted on Xbox Wire, too, that A Realm Beyond is one of those much-needed games the world is calling for now, and that it'll be as whimsical as the old Spyro gems we know and love.

"We know first-hand that a big part of what makes a Spyro game really resonate is having a wide variety of colorful, whimsical spaces with activities, characters, and treasures that motivate you to explore every nook and cranny," studio head Paul Yan explained.

We do get a taste of these spaces in the trailer, and so far, and I'm personally impressed. It's like a modernized step back into the early 2000s, old PlayStation hues and all.

That's not to say that the new Spyro game won't be… well, new. Yan also admitted "the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure," which translates into some very exciting features – like free flight and such.

All in all, A Realm Beyond sounds like a blend of both familiar and fresh Spyro mechanics (and aesthetics, apparently). We'll get to witness it first-hand come its spring 2027 release date.

Fingers crossed that Spyro: A Realm Beyond delivers on all of its promising visuals, features, and more when it does finally launch. I'll be eagerly awaiting it, anyway.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond is the iconic purple dragon's first all-new game in 18 years, but the devs at Toys for Bob don't want to stop here, with studio head Paul Yan expressing hopes that "this is the first of many" to come.

Speaking in an interview with GamesRadar+ at Summer Game Fest 2026, Yan says he's "proud of the team," who have been "paying attention and listening to the community."

He sees that A Realm Beyond could have fallen into two extremes: "If you stick too much to nostalgia, then you basically just rehash, and it's like, 'why did we do that?'" he suggests, saying that rehashing things would mean "there's no future that kind of gets out there."

Meanwhile, "on the other extreme, you innovate too much, and all of a sudden you don't even recognize what the character is and what the series is." With that in mind, Yan says, "that tension is so real" when it came to making A Realm Beyond.

After all, he continues, "our goal is that we want Spyro to live on for a long time. We want not just one new game, but many new games. We hope that this is the first of many. So we're going to have to take some risks. We're going to have to move into new territory, and our goal is to make sure that that evolution is always speaking to something that is authentic and reverential to building on the foundation of what is truly Spyro, and then we'll take some leaps." This will be "uncomfortable," he adds, "but we wanna go there."

It certainly sounds promising – the last all-new Spyro game launched in 2008, and while we had 2018's Reignited Trilogy (also made by Toys for Bob) to tide us over, Spyro fans have been ravenous for something fresh for years.

Thankfully, there's not too much longer to wait for Spyro: A Realm Beyond – it's set to launch in Spring 2027 on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Switch 2, and hopefully we won't have another 18-year wait for the next one after that.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond lets everyone's favorite dragon fly freely, which is "such a significant addition" devs have "built a whole world around that promise."

Infinity Ward has been watching the rise of extraction shooters, like Arc Raiders and Marathon, as it put together its own version of the genre in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's DMZ mode.

Multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot tells Xbox Wire that the team has been "paying attention to the genre," playing popular games to find out "what's clicking with players, what feels good, what doesn't feel good."

Cecot specifically says that the beta for DMZ lacked "meaningful player growth," which happens to be a major part of Arc Raiders' appeal. To fix that, the updated DMZ mode will give you a persistent inventory of gear and a central base to augment and upgrade your loadouts.

That said, extraction shooters require a level of commitment from players that can make it hard for new games to succeed. Cecot seems confident that won't be a problem for DMZ in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, though. He touts its open world full of mini events and unique locations as well as the pace and aesthetic of its combat as the kind of things you won't find in other games.

"Our rich sandbox combined with our first-person military theme is something that's going to really resonate with people," Cecot explains. "And I think our weapon feel and our movement are a step above most of the games."

We may be talking about Call of Duty here, the first-person shooter series of the last decade and change, but those are still some fighting words for popular games like Arc Raiders. I don't think the other games would've stuck so hard if their weapon feel was bad, which just means Infinity Ward is going to have to knock it out of the park to live up to those claims.

Luckily, if DMZ isn't cutting it right away, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will also have a full campaign and suite of multiplayer modes to play while the kinks get ironed out. You'll be able to see how it fares on October 23 for PC, PS5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Xbox Series X.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 boss promises transparency over SBMM: "All will be revealed soon"

Tonight's hotly anticipated Summer Game Fest event was the annual Xbox Games Showcase, and boy, did it bring us some cool reveals – including one of Spyro: A Realm Beyond, a title we've waited nearly two decades for.

The last proper Spyro entry landed a whopping 18 years ago with The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, but Activision and Toys for Bob are finally back with a new entry in the beloved series... one that sounds like it's shaping up to be the biggest we've ever seen – free-flying and all.

Speaking in a new interview with Xbox itself, Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan seems to tease as much, first admitting that A Realm Beyond is just what the nostalgia doctor ordered.

Admitting that it'll be just as colorful and whimsical as predecessors, he says, "In Spyro: A Realm Beyond, the sense of discovery is absolutely core to this new adventure."

This whole "sense of discovery" that the lead mentions here is made all the better by one stand-out fact: you can fly freely about the skies as Spyro in A Realm Beyond. Yes, freely... and that's a lot for both the developers and fans.

As Yan describes, "For now, I can tell you that our biggest ambition in Spyro: A Realm Beyond is to give the player the freedom and fantasy of dragon flight – to be able to take the skies at a moment's notice and make interesting and active decisions to flow through the spaces as you charge on the ground and now soar through the air."

In fact, "This is such a significant addition to the game" that "we've built a whole world around that promise." That's... exciting, to say the least. It almost feels like the jump that the Super Mario series saw in Odyssey – but Spyro. I am so here for that.

If you're looking forward to soaring the skies as everyone's favorite little purple dragon like I am, it'll be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S – and, of course, Xbox Game Pass, too.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

We don't yet know whether or not Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 will feature skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), but one Infinity Ward lead promises the devs will be "transparent" about the situation soon.

SBMM is a divisive topic within the Call of Duty player base – while as the name suggests, it's a system that aims to match players with similar skill levels against each other for a more balanced experience, some argue that doing so makes the game feel less casual and more sweaty, removing the joy from matches where you're head and shoulders above the competition.

Right now, neither Activision nor Infinity Ward have confirmed the extent to which SBMM will be implemented in the upcoming game (if at all), but we at least know that we should find out soon. Asked about it on Twitter, Infinity Ward co-studio head Mark Grigsby simply responds: "All will be revealed soon, and transparent."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 went through a few ups and downs with its own SBMM – in the runup to its release, it was announced that "at launch, Open Matchmaking with minimal skill consideration will be the default matchmaking." Then, it was later clarified that this wouldn't apply to all playlists, with the majority "similar to the Beta experience where skill is minimally considered." Not everyone was happy about this – some called it a "rug pull" and a "backtrack," and perhaps this could be influencing the devs' immediate promise to be open about their plans this time around.

This is already going down well with fans, too. "It's actually crazy think that if you go back just 2-3 years you'd have never seen a studio head of COD openly replying to someone asking about SBMM. Crazy how things have changed. Only uphill from here," former CoD leaker Ghost of Hope responds.

"If he can deliver on this, then there might be hope," another replies.

Frankly, it seems incredibly unlikely that Infinity Ward will be able to please everyone in practice. For as many people who love the feeling of destroying their opponents, you'll no doubt have just as many who'd be left frustrated in the face of constant annihilation thanks to being matched with players more skilled than them. How the devs will tackle this, then, remains to be seen, but at least they're planning on telling us.

Modern Warfare 4 goes head-to-head with Arc Raiders and Escape from Tarkov as Call of Duty's extraction shooter mode DMZ returns.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders are alive and kicking following the game's reveal yesterday, and there's some decent extra swag up for grabs. You'll need to put your order in early if you want access to the open beta in October. We don't know precisely when that early access period will run, but it's likely going to be close to the October 23 release date.

That means it's time to get those copies locked in, and retailers are already starting to compete. Amazon and Best Buy are your top bets in the US right now. The former is offering five hours of double XP with its standard edition Call of Duty pre-orders, while the latter can send you home with a steelbook case. In the UK, Currys is my go-to. While UK players can also double their points with Amazon, Currys is throwing in that steelbook with a 10% discount on the game itself.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders come in two shapes right now: a Standard Edition with the full game and that open beta access, and a Vault Edition with additional cosmetics, packs, multiplayer bonuses, and BlackCell. Activision is also running a loyalty scheme this time around. Essentially, anyone who has already played a CoD game released after 2019 can score 10% off their Vault Edition pre-order (Warzone doesn't count).

Both Modern Warfare 4 editions are now available to pre-order on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC - but Activision notes we'll be waiting a little longer for the new Nintendo Switch 2 versions.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders in the US

Standard Editions

The standard $69.99 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 pre-order comes with access to the open beta included. That's the only way you'll be able to play ahead of that release date. Thankfully, Best Buy and Amazon are throwing their own incentives into the ring with steelbooks and double XP offerings.

Vault Edition

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Vault Edition pre-orders are the digital deluxe versions, with the open beta access included as well as additional in-game cosmetics (with, apparently, a more "grounded" approach), items, and currency:

• Hunter Killer Operator Skin
• Hostile Alliance Operator Pack
• Special Forces Operator Pack
• Signature Weapon Collection
• BlackCell (one season)
• DMZ Deployment Bonus

UK pre-orders

Looking for something to play on? We're also rounding up all the best PS5 bundle deals and the latest Nintendo Switch deals on the market.

Military shooter fans can rejoice because Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 has just been announced, and it's heading our way this year.

Ever since 2007's release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the offshoot has become a staple in the FPS space, so needless to say, it's already on our list of the most anticipated new games on the near horizon. Keeping that in mind, I've made a handy guide to keep you up to speed on the latest news and all the details that you need to know about the next bullet-filled outing.

Below, you'll find information about the Modern Warfare 4 release date, confirmed platforms, campaign insights, and all the gameplay features and changes that you can expect. I also plan to keep this page updated as and when fresh news drops, so be sure to check in regularly for what could be one of the best FPS games on the way.

Modern Warfare 4 release date

The good news is that we already have a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 release date, and it's October 23, 2026. That means that we are just a few months away from some shooter goodness, folks.

This news came our way on May 28, 2026, and so far it looks like there will be no delays in sight. We'll let you know if anything changes, but in the meantime, you can catch-up on the Black Ops timeline by checking out our guide to all of the Call of Duty games in order.

Modern Warfare 4 platforms

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is heading too all the new-gen consoles and PC, so that means PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series X/S players will be getting their hands on it once it releases.

Activision also confirmed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare won't be coming to Xbox Game Pass at launch.

We are still waiting for cross-play details and confirmation, but we assume there won't be any issues with playing multiplayer with mates across different systems. Fingers crossed our hunch is correct.

Modern Warfare 4 trailer

Modern Warfare 4 campaign

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4's campaign is centered around the Korean Peninsula, with the threat of a full-scale invasion of South Korea sparking potential global destabilization.

However, despite the focus on Korea and the trench style warfare that we will be experiencing there, the game will feature some more locations, too, with missions taking us to the likes of New York, Mumbai, and Paris. It does seem like we will be in for a very cinematic and big story folks.

In terms of more plot details for the campaign, we also have some very interesting character insights already. So far we know that we'll be seeing Private Park in the campaign, a young Korean grunt soldier, who is thrust into combat for the first time. Expect to see a journey from "zero to hero" here as Park and his company have to survive against some impossible odds. Captain Price will also return and will set up a rogue alliance, where he'll operate outside the system. Very intriguing.

I'll keep my eyes peeled as more information drops, but for now, the campaign does seem like it will be a gritty and blockbuster coded affair.

Modern Warfare 4 gameplay

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is a first-person shooter developed by Infinity Ward that features a single-player campaign, multiplayer and DMZ.

The campaign mode will have players following a narrative as they complete various missions that offer variations of military-based gameplay such as close-quarters battles, high-speed pursuits, SAS night raids, and city-wide assaults.

For multiplayer, on day one players will deploy across 12 all-new core 6v6 maps set in visually and tactically distinct locations around the world. These various maps are built to support a range of playstyles from tight close-quarters combat to more open engagements. Multiplayer also features dedicated Gunfight maps, Big War maps (for vehicle and infantry fans), and a dynamic battleground with more than 500 configurations called Kill Block.

Finally, DMZ is something for all you extraction shooter enthusiasts. This is a living sandbox, where you (either solo or with a squad) are sent into a living combat zone and are tasked with recovering advanced military technology. The exclusion zones are also constantly shifting, keeping things fresh with weather changes, military objectives and plenty of hostiles for you to deal with as well.

Besides these three core gameplay offerings, it's also worth mentioning that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is giving players more choice than ever before through two Prestige paths: Classic Prestige and Regular Prestige. Classic Prestige delivers the traditional reset experience, relocking Create-a-Class progression in exchange for increased XP earn rates and access to exclusive Prestige rewards.

Ballistic Authority is also a new weapon-first technology stack that is used to deliver the most authentic gunplay experience in Modern Warfare yet too by unifying precision aiming, physical handling, realistic audio propagation, enhanced visibility, and smarter combat perception. Honestly, it all sounds like we'll be getting very precise and fair shooting experiences with this one, which is always welcomed.

Can I pre-order Modern Warfare 4?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders are now live across most platforms, with Activision confirming Switch 2 pre-orders will be going live "later this year".

The Modern Warfare 4 pre-orders become available shortly after the game's reveal, with a blog post confirming the editions, as well as the pre-order bonuses you can get your hands on.

A digital Vault Edition is available for all platforms and will get you Early Access to the Open Beta, along with Special Forces and Hostile Alliance Operator packs, a Hunter Killer Operator skin, the Signature Weapons collection and a DMZ deployment bonus.

Pre-ordering the Standard Edition will also give you Early Access to the Open Beta, along with the Hunter Killer Operator Skin. Digital versions of this edition will be available for all platforms, while a physical release can also be picked up for those playing on consoles.

In the meantime, I suggest checking out our list of the best Call of Duty games if you're looking for something to tuck into ahead of Modern Warfare 4's launch.

If you are after some COD alternatives while you wait, head over to our list of the best games like Call of Duty. Or for more future releases, you can read our round-ups of all the upcoming PS5 games, upcoming Xbox Series X games, and upcoming PC games as well.

It sure looks like Activision is gearing up to announce the rumored Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, as a mysterious live stream teases something after a number of leaks and rumors.

Right now on the official Call of Duty YouTube channel, you can watch a stream titled "카메라 004 | LIVE," which machine translation says simply means "Camera 004 | LIVE" in Korean. The stream itself has already changed significantly in the time I've been watching it – what started as a view of a street somewhere in Korea, complete with ambient noise and power cables gently swaying in the breeze, changed to show soldiers moving through the area, before an enormous explosion set the scene ablaze. Since then, the image has been much darker, and viewers have been able to hear people screaming, air raid sirens, and more explosions.

Being on the Call of Duty channel, it's obvious that this is a tease for something new, but as VGC points out, leaks that have preceded this mean we probably have a pretty good idea of what's coming.

Last year, former Call of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope (who earlier this year stated that "Activision has legally demanded that I stop leaking and disseminating confidential information") claimed that the 2026 CoD release would feature North and South Korea in its campaign, with 141, the SAS, and Republic of Korea Army being the three main playable factions as you attempt to stop a third world war. What's more, the game was apparently titled Modern Warfare 사 – the Korean character has multiple meanings, but most notably in this case can mean 'four.'

While the leaker's shutdown could be interpreted as confirmation of accuracy, it's worth noting that the official Call of Duty account previously denied that TheGhostOfHope was right about everything, saying: "Even when leaks are wrong, they still hurt the people building the game and mess with player expectations."

Even so, that wasn't the only rumor. Just yesterday, reliable leaker Billbil-kun shared what they claim is blurry cover art for "one of Activision's games: 사." Although it's blurry, you can pretty clearly make out three soldiers standing side by side. NateTheHate – a prominent Nintendo leaker who accurately leaked the Switch 2 reveal, as well as the new Star Fox game amongst other things – took to Reddit to say that this will be the first Call of Duty game on Switch 2, too.

The official Call of Duty channels haven't yet confirmed any of this, but with the stream ongoing, it seems like it's probably only a matter of time before we see what it's all about. A release around October or November has been the pattern for the series since its inception 23 years ago, so it stands to reason that we could expect the reveal for the next one to arrive around now – watch this space.

For now, be sure to check out our list of the best Call of Duty games of all time.

After the studio lost funding from NetEase, former Call of Duty dev David Vonderhaar's studio BulletFarm has confirmed that it's working on a new game.

Yesterday, NetEase veteran Simon Zhu announced a new holding company named GreaterThan Group to invest in multiple game studios, including Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic development team Arcanaut Studios led by Mass Effect veteran Casey Hudson. Zhu said in a press release that GreaterThan Group is "bringing common sense back to the games industry" and that the group's role "is to create the right conditions for creators to work on their dream projects."

Another studio now backed by GreaterThan is BulletFarm, founded by David Vonderhaar, who is best known for his work on the Call of Duty: Black Ops series (with Cold War being his final entry) as well as Warzone. In a post on Twitter, the studio announces that – despite the previous loss of funding – "BulletFarm lives. Same name. Same DNA. Same commitment to the player experience."

The post praises its new partner, saying "GreaterThan Group's core value of empowering development studios enables us to focus entirely on building a world-class team: one empowered to create experiences that leave a legacy for players around the world." It confirms: "We're in the early stages of creating a completely new first-person multiplayer/co-operative experience under the GTG banner, with high-intensity action, systemic gameplay, and cinematic immersion at its core."

Speaking to Bloomberg, Vonderhaar drops a bit more detail about the project, saying that the studio is "definitely not" making a military simulation. He adds that "it's not a Call of Duty killer," but rather something creative that he likens to "if David Lynch made shooters," with a description that seems to confirm it's a PvPvE game. He also notes that he hopes to complete the game in roughly three years.

Activision kills Call of Duty rumor: next game will not be on PS4, ending last-gen support nearly 6 years after PS5 and Xbox Series X launch.

The next Call of Duty game will not be available on PS4 or seemingly Xbox One, ending six years of last-gen support for the series.

The official Call of Duty Twitter account addressed the future of the franchise in a post earlier today, stamping out recent rumors claiming that Modern Warfare 4, widely but somewhat arbitrarily believed to be the next installment, is currently being tested on PS4. (If nothing else, we know that Activision will "no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops," meaning another Black Ops game is out of the running for now.)

"Not sure where this one started, but it’s not true. The next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4," the series' account writes. This post notably doesn't specify PS4 and Xbox One, but it would be unthinkable for just one last-gen console to get a port, and this reads more like Activision targeting those PS4 rumors directly.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's cross-gen release last year disappointed some fans hoping to see the series break free from dated hardware and push the bar on current-gen consoles exclusively. Granted, per our Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review, it also disappointed in several other ways and most certainly did not push the bar.

Call of Duty has been a mass-market money machine for decades, which has long led owner Activision (and now new parent Microsoft) to target the biggest install base possible. Consequently, a lot of Call of Duty games have been cross-gen years into new console cycles. The series' PS3 and Xbox 360 support continued in some capacity until 2015, about a decade post-launch, and ended with Infinite Warfare in 2016 as the first current-gen exclusive of its time (side games notwithstanding).

Terrifyingly, the PS5 and Xbox Series X are already approaching six years old. Call of Duty games tend to be fall releases, so by the time the next entry arrives, it might actually be six years since the November 2020 console launch. With the PS4 era officially dropped as of the next installment, this generation's Call of Duty window has closed a bit slower.

The price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is falling, and all it cost was day one access to new Call of Duty games.

The development of Overwatch 2 was troublesome, to say the least. Some PvE elements wound up being scrapped, and there were tensions over the release schedule. Jeff Kaplan, a former director on Overwatch, considers the whole ordeal one of his greatest failings in the industry.

"It's one of my biggest mistakes I've made as a creative leader in my career," he says on the Lex Fridman podcast. "There were two points of failure for me. The first was, I had people on the game team who didn't like PvP or competitive shooters, and they really loved the Overwatch universe and wanted to play these characters and heroes, they wanted to do it on their own terms in a PvE setting."

Though they were enthusiastic, they wanted the emphasis to be on a more co-operative, campaign-driven experience, rather than PvP, despite the first Overwatch being a "runaway success." The second, he states, was from management.

"The Blizzard, and more so the Activision management teams started really putting the heat on, 'You said Overwatch 2 was going to be out in 2019,'" he remembers, as they pointed towards slides he presented featuring a hypothetical timeline for the hero shooter. "You never want to put a PowerPoint deck in front of a corporate executive, you might as well etch it in stone and come down from the mountain."

The slide shown has a second game arriving around 2019, "all bullshit," as Kaplan calls it. A means of communicating a vision, not a hard plan, but execs apparently saw it differently. The pressure was compounded by ideas being thrown around on Overwatch 2 in 2015, prior to the original, by Kaplan, Chris Metzen, former creative director on Overwatch, and Michael Chu, the former lead writer on Overwatch.

It was all so early, because he was trying to create a runway for Overwatch as a multi-faceted property. Sadly, things didn't turn out that way, and Overwatch 2 launched in 2023, still focused on PvP, and has since been rebranded to simply Overwatch. Kaplan left Blizzard in 2021.

"It felt surreal": Overwatch co-creator allegedly left Blizzard after a former exec said he'd be responsible for 1,000 layoffs if the shooter didn't hit financial targets

A prominent leaker for the Call of Duty franchise has been shut down by Activision. To add insult to injury, the publisher took one last chance to quash the legitimacy of the information they provided.

On March 4, TheGhostofHope, a Call of Duty reporter who claimed to have insider info related to the FPS series, posted about legal ramifications preventing their work from continuing. "Activision has legally demanded that I stop leaking and disseminating confidential information related to Call of Duty/Activision," they write on Twitter. "I am complying with their demands."

TheGhostofHope will continue to cover the games in some capacity, but only based on "official" news, rather than providing or commenting on current leaks and rumors. Their bio now denotes them as "retired."

In response, Call of Duty-related YouTuber Tdawg tweeted out, wondering if this means TheGhostofHope was " right about everything?" Not quite the case, apparently.

"Nah," responds the official Call of Duty Twitter account. "Even when leaks are wrong, they still hurt the people building the game and mess with player expectations."

Ouch. Regardless of your feelings on leaks, how they impact people's perception of what's coming is a valid concern. If an insider claims something you've been hoping will be included in the next Call of Duty or an upcoming season of multiplayer, and it's not, it can be disappointing, through no fault of the development team.

At the same time, it's always concerning to see publishers put the boot into any journalistic practice, and it seems TheGhostofHope was truly cornered. This will no doubt reverberate through the Call of Duty leaks community, perhaps leading to other personalities leaving the scene. For now, one trusted voice has been stifled.

Call of Duty is cracking down on cheaters ahead of season 2 and the launch of ranked play with "major technology innovations" and bans on third-party devices: "Cheating can cost more than a win."

Eight years ago, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 introduced battle royale to the series with its Blackout mode, a formula Warzone vastly expanded over the years. Still, some players continue to crave the more straightforward battle royale experience offered by the original Blackout, and Warzone's Black Ops Royale is poised to deliver exactly that.

Black Ops Royale launches on March 12 at 9pm PT, or March 13 at 12am ET, and as the devs explain in a lengthy blog post, it's "an original Blackout-inspired Battle Royale with no Loadouts, no Gulag, and no Buy Stations."

The Gulag has been replaced by Redeploy Tokens, which essentially serve as extra lives, and Redeploy Towers, which teams can capture to revive their allies. Similarly, instead of loadouts and buy stations, you'll scavenge all of your loot in the classic battle royale way, rushing to map locations to grab the good gear before opposing players do.

You'll be able to grab especially high-value loot from Cradle Breaches, which essentially replace the Zombie Zones of Blackout. During the match, a bomber will drop a hallucinatory gas canister that'll make you see a bunch of presumably fake zombies and certainly very real high-tier loot caches. Each Cradle Breach only lasts for a limited time, so you'll have to contend with both the zombies and other players gunning for that loot as you rush for the best gear.

It seems that Black Ops Royale will launch as an all-quads affair, so smaller squads and solo players are out of luck, but the blog notes that that's just "to begin with." This isn't an LTM, so it seems that the mode is here to stay, and it's very possible that more squad sizes will become available in later updates.

The YouTube comments on the announcement trailer keep calling this "Blackout 2," and the devs are pretty explicit about the mode's inspiration. "There are clear influences from the core Blackout experience – like bullet drop and weapon handling, as well as the armor system and use of the Trauma Kit – capturing the Blackout pacing, traversal, and combat feel in a modern way," they explain in the announcement.

"This isn't a remake; it's a unique experience that pays homage to the Blackout core gameplay while keeping the flow of a match feeling right for Call of Duty: Warzone players," the devs say. Clearly, those players are more than ready for a mode exactly along these lines.

Here are the best Call of Duty games of all time.

Activision is ramping up its perpetual battle against Call of Duty cheaters with significant new anti-cheat measures ahead of Black Ops 7 and Warzone season 2's launch later this week.

In a new Call of Duty blog, Activision assures players – as much as it can, anyway – that it's taking action to ensure Black Ops 7 and Warzone ranked play is as fair as possible right at launch and that cheaters are sifted out before matches even start.

"Season 02 is almost here, and our top priority is clear: launching Ranked Play with the strongest protections possible, so matches are decided by player skill, not exploits," reads the blog.

"To that end, we're focused on making sure that players in these matches are using trusted, secure systems on both console and PC. We're achieving this by investing in major technology innovations in our anti-cheat systems and our security technology stack."

Specifically, Activision says it's adding "a new suite" of detections to its kernel-level Ricochet anti-cheat system that'll help identify third-party devices like Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix, which can be used to give players machine-perfect aim, and the accounts that use them.

On top of that, Activision says Ricochet is setting "a new industry standard in security" with "a stronger form of remote, cloud-based attestation" that operates on Microsoft Azure." This added layer of security will work to authenticate accounts and weed out cheaters before matches begin, and Activision says "most" players won't need to do any settings tweaking for it to start working.

"It's the most robust attestation technology available in gaming and bringing it first to Ranked Play helps ensure competitive matches are won on merit," boasts Activision. "These added protections help stop cheating before a match even begins, so games feel fair from the start."

Of course – as the Black Ops 7 beta proved back in October – the moment that new anti-cheat protections arrive, cheaters will inevitably start looking for ways to bypass them, creating an eternal push and pull between devs and these gosh darn tricksters. The impact of cheating in ranked play is naturally much more consequential than normal modes, and that's why Activision is taking these extra measures before ranked becomes available.

"We know what an unfair match looks like: losing a close gunfight to aim that never seems to miss, recoil that never kicks, or reactions that don't feel human," it says. "In Ranked Play, cheating can cost more than a win. It impacts Skill Rating (SR), momentum in your session, and confidence in the mode."

Here are the best FPS games to play right now.

Battlefield and Call of Duty have been wrapped up in a seemingly eternal feud for as long as both have been around, which is give or take 23 years. They're the shooter equivalent of Ares vs. Athena, Tom vs. Jerry, Coke vs. Pepsi - forever destined to be at odds for the title of the military shooter – and for the first time ever, Battlefield has come out on top.

Veteran games industry analyst, Circana's Mat Piscatella, recently released a list of the best-selling video games of 2025 in the US based on dollar sales. Lo and behold, for the first time in series history, Battlefield 6 comfortably topped the list ahead of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Here's the full chart:

1. Battlefield 6
2. NBA 2K26
3. Borderlands 4
4. Monster Hunter Wilds
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
6. Madden NFL 26
7. EA Sports College Football 26
8. EA Sports FC 26
9. The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

The rest of the list also includes the immortal Minecraft, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which may have actually charted higher if Circana's data included digital Nintendo sales.

In over two decades, a Battlefield release has never placed higher than a Call of Duty game on the chart until now. What's more impressive is that, since 2009, only three games have beaten the annual shooter franchise on the year-end list: 2013's GTA 5, 2018's Red Dead Redemption 2, and 2023's Hogwarts Legacy.

This is also the first time since 2008 that Call of Duty hasn't managed to cling onto at least the second-place position, back when Call of Duty: World at War had stiff competition from multiple Wii games and GTA 4.

Franchise fatigue might finally be part of the reason why Black Ops 7 underperformed this time around, but a less-than-stellar reception didn't do the game any favors, either. The latest Call of Duty currently has 'Mostly Negative' reviews on Steam, as well as one of the worst Metacritic scores in the series' record books.

Activision makes big Call of Duty announcement: "We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops" mainly "to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year"

Between the high-profile launches of Avowed, Grounded 2, and The Outer Worlds 2, the Xbox Series X was no stranger to smaller-scale successes in 2025.

We finally got our hands on 33 Immortals when it launched into Early Access in March, April saw Bethesda's whipcracking epic Indiana Jones and the Great Circle debut on PS5, Doom: The Dark Ages brought a new spin on a classic FPS in May, and Compulsion Games' action-adventure take on Southern Gothic folklore left me spellbound in my South of Midnight review. Oh, and there's also the tiny matter of one of the best Elder Scrolls games getting a shadowdropped remaster that same month.

The slimmed-down roster, mostly composed of cross-platform and third-party titles, shows that Xbox is in a period of quiet re-focusing. It's good to see it investing in its award-winning IPs and taking chances on new ones after 2024 left many of its victories overshadowed by layoffs and studio closures. That said, the parent company hasn't managed to totally side-step further scrutiny this year; October saw 9,000 more Xbox employees told to pack their bags to cap off an already fraught time for industry layoffs, and the sudden cancelation of Everwild and the Perfect Dark reboot left the latter studio shuttered for good.

For once, though, I feel like I'm heading into the new year with a clearer picture of Microsoft's intentions – even if most of the upcoming Xbox Series X games we've been waiting so patiently for still have question marks over their release dates.

Play safe

When I think about Xbox's journey in 2025, one studio immediately springs to mind. Obsidian was already behind some of the best Xbox Series X games of recent years, but having delivered a staggering trifecta of games in just 10 months, it's clear that Microsoft has found its new Chosen One.

It's just as well, because Xbox started 2025 with big shoes to fill. Specifically, those belonging to a certain exploring archaeologist. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle landed at a curious point in the late-2024 schedule. The bombastic holiday blockbuster was the finishing touch on Microsoft's annual offerings, the hype carrying us into the new year with Xbox firmly in our good graces. Then, February kept the good times rolling with the first Obsidian game of 2025: Avowed.

Sitting somewhere between being Obsidian's own Skyrim and a totally distinct fantasy RPG experience, Avowed was the harbinger of successes yet to come. It would be easy to distil Xbox's 2025 as the year of Obsidian, but I actually find it more helpful to use each of its three games as benchmarks when looking at the year as a whole.

If Avowed marked the continuation of Indiana's rose-tinted hangover, April sobered us up. It was a shame to see Compulsion Games' South of Midnight garner a little less attention than I'd have hoped – it's the perfect example of a made-for-Game Pass game if ever I saw one, easily completed in a single weekend and charming to the very core, but it was no match for buzz around The Elder Scrolls 4: Obsidian Remastered's stealth drop later that month.

The Bethesda remaster launched on PS5 too, with Xbox notably stepping away from total console exclusivity for a lot of its legacy titles inherited through recent studio acquisitions like Bethesda and Activision.

Into the unknown

While I'm personally all for dismantling the unhelpful "console wars" on a fundamental level, it does mean that Xbox didn't see another homegrown exclusive launch until July.

Grounded 2 went into Early Access in the midst of summer, and much like Avowed before it, the Obsidian game is only playable on PC and Xbox Series X|S – at least temporarily, like the first game. Meanwhile, October saw The Outer Worlds 2 skipping the exclusivity stage completely, par for the course given that The Outer Worlds 1 launched on PS5 and Nintendo Switch too.

But Xbox's cross-platform victories still belong to Microsoft. I respect the parent company for ensuring that its newly acquired properties aren't being withheld from their audiences unfairly. It makes sense that Avowed, as a new IP spinning off the Pillars of Eternity universe, has no such compunction.

As 2026 beckons, Xbox leaves 2025 in a much quieter fashion than it entered. Survival horror Routine followed fellow third-party entry Moonlighter 2 as the last (albeit temporary, in Moonlighter 2's case) exclusives of the year, leaving all eyes on the horizon. Xbox had a notable lack in new game release dates shown off at The Game Awards 2025, choosing instead to announce a January developer direct showcase that will hopefully shed some light on big names we're waiting to hear about.

I'm most keen to hear what the score is with Playground's new Fable game, having been pushed to 2026 to stand in the shadow of GTA 6's impending launch, as well as Forza Horizon 6, Clockwork Revolution, Marvel's Blade, and OD – an upcoming horror game from Hideo Kojima. That's before we even glance in the direction of the upcoming Bethesda games in the works, including The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5.

2025 feels like a year where Xbox slowed down to take stock of itself. Here's hoping that 2026 puts those plans into action and presents a refined, united front that will prove why Microsoft deserves to be at the forefront of conversations – with or without the console exclusivity that once governed all.

Xbox has strong rep among the best games of 2025, and there's plenty more besides

To say Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has garnered a mixed reception would be putting it mildly. In response, Activision has pledged to make some stark improvements and "overdeliver" on the game, as well as announcing Black Ops and Modern Warfare games won't release back-to-back any more. The moves have gotten a vote of confidence from a former Microsoft executive, who’s now cheering from the sidelines despite some earlier criticism.

Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard and corporate vice president at Xbox, posted as much on Twitter. "Competition is good. I'm rooting for the Call of Duty team to come back with vengeance - for the players and their team," he states. "They work incredibly hard and remain very talented."

He ends with a throwback of sorts to an older, bolder statement: "We will get a better Call of Duty thanks to Battlefield." Big words, but there's been some truth to them. This is a hugely competitive year for Activision’s FPS series, with Battlefield 6 coming out weeks before Black Ops 7 hit shelves.

That lead time gave the new Battlefield an advantage to begin with, a disparity only compounded by the tepid response this Call of Duty received critically (it's on 67 on Metacritic at time of writing) and within the player-base. Having such a rival helps fuel innovation and the urge for recovery, though, leading us to here and now.

Whether the latest Black Ops manages to pull it back, we'll have to wait and see. The post about the state of the game promises the devs at Treyarch and Raven Software, "won't rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we've ever made." Lofty, but plenty are hoping to see it happen, including people who've been helping make and ship games for decades.

Chatter over Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's skill-based matchmaking kicks up another notch after player runs the tests and finds it isn't quite as open as we'd hoped.

Activision says Call of Duty will no longer be getting back-to-back Modern Warfare or Black Ops releases, signaling the start of a major change in the series' release order.

In a blog post from "Call of Duty Staff," Activision seemingly responds to the less-than-stellar response from critics and players to the recently released Black Ops 7.

"With respect to Black Ops 7, we set our sights to deliver a spiritual successor to Black Ops 2 and the studios have poured their passion into making a great game that all of us are very proud of," Activision says. "But it's one thing for us to say it, more importantly it's up to you to try it and judge for yourselves."

Judge it, players have. Black Ops 7 has "mostly negative" Steam reviews at the time of writing, with players heavily criticizing the story, multiplayer modes, and performance. Meanwhile, it has one of the series' worst Metascores at 67 and an abysmal 1.6 user score, suggesting "overwhelming dislike."

But Activision has a three-pronged plan to get everything back on track, starting with a free trial and double XP weekend starting "next week" that'll let everyone "experience the game firsthand and decide for yourselves" whether it's any good.

The second part of Activision's plan is "unprecedented seasonal support," but the specifics are yet to be spelled out. "Season 01 is the largest live season ever and we're just getting started," Activision says. "We won't rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we've ever made."

And finally, Activision is changing the way it releases Call of Duty games in a big way, ditching successive releases of Black Ops and Modern Warfare games. From now on, "we will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games," Activision says.

"The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year," it adds. "We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental."

Activision says it'll share more details on all of this "when the time is right," but for now, it says you can rest assured that "the future of Call of Duty is very strong and we believe our best days are ahead of us given the depth and talent of our development teams."

Take a trip down memory lane with our list of the best Call of Duty games.

After assuring fans that skill-based matchmaking would take a backseat in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, one user has tested this, and it seems like it isn't quite as open as people hoped.

During the Black Ops 7 beta, Treyarch made waves with the community by introducing open matchmaking via a special playlist, which was celebrated by the community at large. After testing skill-based matchmaking again for feedback (which everyone still disliked), it was announced that Black Ops 7 would implement open matchmaking as default.

However, since release, some players have begun to feel it isn't quite as open as it was in the beta and suspect it isn't as open as many had hoped, given promises of "minimal skill consideration."

Youtuber XclusiveReloaded put this to the test, comparing games on his main account versus a brand new account. The tests found that when playing on their high-tier account that his ping was significantly lower than it was when playing on the new account (one out of 10 games were in the 20 ms range compared to eight out of 10 on the new account).

This shows that in some cases skill difference is being considered above ping, which in turn results in a different gameplay experience depending on your skill level. While XclusiveReloaded does concede that it's still a better experience than previous Call of Duty entries, he concurs that it's a step down from the beta experience.

Naturally, fans are not happy about this perceived rugpull, with the ModernWarzone Twitter saying, "Just watched Ace’s entire SBMM video and… not looking good." They also expressed hope that Treyarch responds to this, saying "his results definitely indicate a trend of skill not being minimally considered in his matchmaking."

Meanwhile, ModernWarzone owner DougDagnabbit adds that these are "Genuinely such sad results." He adds, "It’s at least been proven that skill is considered above ping in some instances, which should NEVER be the case... Just gotta laugh at this point."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review: "I respect Treyarch's attempt to make the weirdest Call of Duty possible, but it results in a campaign misfire and multiplayer that's hardly revolutionary."

The time has come, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is finally here – but it's safe to say that its release hasn't exactly gone over smoothly with the shooter community after the likes of Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6… and the use of generative AI certainly doesn't help.

Eagle-eyed fans recently noted that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 seemingly employs the use of gen AI instead of human-made artwork in various instances, from its calling cards to reward icons – and it's clear they've not been thrilled to see it. The Steam page itself, which shows "Mixed" reviews from players, confirms that developers didn't shy away from AI, too: "Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in-game assets."

Activision did respond to curious outlets, including PCGamesN, explaining the use of AI and saying, "Like so many around the world, we use a variety of digital tools, including AI tools, to empower and support our teams to create the best gaming experiences possible for our players. Our creative process continues to be led by the talented individuals in our studios." This didn't help the situation much, though – and now, it's reached the US Congress.

Congressional representative Ro Khanna of the Democratic Party's new online post on the matter proves as much. "We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits," it reads. "Artists at these companies need to have a say in how AI is deployed. They should share in the profits. And there should be a tax on mass displacement." Khanna further details his stance in replies.

"Support innovation, but in a way that is democratic and benefits all Americans," reads one of his responses. In another, he writes, "I believe tech can create jobs, need tech trades, and should embrace innovation. But having incentives for it to be augmenting capability instead of displacing it and having a plan to hire folks is making sure it's done in a way that benefits every American."

Amusingly enough, this isn't the only instance of video games reaching government officials – just days ago, news of the GTA 6 delay reached the Polish parliament, and shortly after, the recent Rockstar Games firings made it to the UK Parliament as well.

Thinking of hopping into the shooter yourself? Check our Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review to learn what we think of it so far.

At the very least, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has given me plenty to laugh about. How could it not? This year's storyline is accessed strictly through a "co-op campaign" listing on the main menu, an experience designed to be shared (though you can suffer it solo, if you must). Haphazardly tied together cutscenes and narrative beats flip jarringly between sudden reveals, badly done rehashes of classic Black Ops moments, and a deluge of hallucinatory dream sequence levels that deliver the most absurd mission objectives of any CoD to date. But with a friend there are very non-sensible chuckles to be had, even if it ultimately leaves me sour.

That's not to say Call of Duty campaigns haven't been deeply silly for years. The extreme conspiracy theories of Call of Duty: Black Ops in particular has always been part of its charm. But that tone has always been because it has remained at least partially grounded – the straight-faced over-the-top bombast part of the point. In Black Ops 7, it just becomes ropey.

Boss fights against what appear to be Warzone operators just happen in what appears to be a battle royale style open world map (Avalon) as they recycle a handful of taunts over comms before unceremoniously collapsing. One stage has me walk out of an elevator into an unchanged Black Ops 6 multiplayer map for some cursory 'protect the point'. More than one boss fight feels like Destiny 2 crossed with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – dodging massive AoE attacks marked on the floor while unloading clips into weak spots. Zombies mode assets are funneled continuously into the main story. Is this just what Call of Duty campaigns are now? How could the series that brought me the highs of the original Modern Warfare, Black Ops, and, yes, even WW2, come to this?

The numbers, Mason

I don't have to be Mason-level conspiracy pilled to have an idea. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is awfully similar in its approach to 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. This is part of an unusual shift in the series' annualized release schedule following the announcement of publisher Activision's sale to Microsoft and Xbox. The series numbering is present in both cases, making these seem like normal releases – but dig beneath the surface and as far as the campaigns are concerned they feel like odd ducks.

Previously, the military FPS would flipflop between sub-series and developer each year (such as the original Modern Warfare 2 in 2009, followed by the first Black Ops in 2010, then the original Modern Warfare 3 in 2010). Recently, we've had back-to-back sub-series sequels. This last happened with the rebooted Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was released in 2022, which was followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 in 2023. Now, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which released last year in 2024, has been followed up by Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 in 2025. In our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 review we called it "one of the most underwhelming entries in Call of Duty's 20 year history". This is the birth of the Call of Duty halfway sequel I call a CoD point five. It's all become too much.

Thankfully, there are differences – Black Ops 7 does improve on Modern Warfare 3's "uninspired" and "lackluster" approach to its campaign. There, open world style missions were plonked into a battle royale-style open world having you run around an awkwardly large world completing samey objectives. Black Ops 7's Avalon is a similar approach, but with more varied objectives, even if it does all still feel too loose and spread out to really offer very compelling design.

At least in Black Ops 7, the Avalon missions are connective tissue between playing Call of Duty missions that are more traditional in structure if not in content. At one point that means David Mason and the squad handing control over to another unit who must track down data to pass by their way. More often than not, it means Team Mason walking into something like a shipping container to be gassed into having a hallucination nightmare.

These obviously take cues from what we've called "the scariest level in Call of Duty history" – Black Ops 6's Emergence. But, there, the integration of Zombies mode inspired content was a novelty. In Black Ops 7 to say there is a lot of it is, somehow, an understatement. Visually, these chapters offer some striking moments – twisting, spiralling highways of a Los Angeles under attack; a haunted, labyrinthine prison; gnarled jungle vines connecting together islands floating in the sky. The platforming isn't even that bad (though more interesting in its real world location deployment).

Year we go again

The narrative threads connecting these sequences are overly rushed at best, and a jumble at worst. And the mechanical demands mostly amount to mowing down huge waves of nightmare creatures that come right out of Zombies, but with some abstracted names above their health bars (oh, every enemy has a health bar now, I guess).

As a whole, Black Ops 7's campaign feels stitched together from whatever parts were available. Huge plot beats come and go fast enough to give me whiplash. One of the premise's major narrative drivers is explained away offhand, so fast it's easy to miss it. Others involving past series characters are complete nonsense – overly navel-gazing while simultaneously adding nothing to the overarching story because they're all dream sequences anyway.

It's not great, but it's extra frustrating that after the disappointing Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops 6's campaign felt like we were really back on track… only to regress once again. It's clear that rather than being able to hand-off development between studios to successfully release a Call of Duty every year, we now have 'off-year' style Call of Duty games that are mid-step releases in all but their shiny, numbered names. The lack of signposting for anyone who isn't combing through every detail pre-launch almost feels a bit disingenuous.

When Black Ops 4 released without a traditional campaign at all, that was at least a part of the pitch. Ever since that appeal to the hero shooter crowd didn't bear fruit, the series has struggled to reckon with its place as an online gaming pillar amid the modern landscape of live service titans and its annualized format that's held strong since 2005's Call of Duty 2.

Personally, I'd rather Call of Duty games took a year off to really get each sequel right – as was once rumoured to be the case back when it seemed like Modern Warfare 3 was perhaps originally an expansion for Modern Warfare 2 rather than a full release itself. But what was a misstep there, even if it's been tightened for Black Ops 7, is now feeling like a worrying trend. At what point do we start skipping every other entry as players?

It feels like a strategy that may come close to burning fans – though if the majority of players just hop into multiplayer anywhere, maybe that risk has been weighed and found wanting. But, when I'm fighting a strange plant-like nightmare and gunning down 'summoned creatures' to open up its weak points I can't help but think of All Ghillied Up, Vorkuta, and Liberation. I miss when Call of Duty's campaign felt like calling card flourishes and landmark events, rather than an assemblage of multiplayer pieces that are an afterthought.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was played on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

Which CoD games should you play? Check out our best Call of Duty games ranking to find out!

Now that the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 release time has come, naturally, lots of players around the world are diving straight in. Going by early reactions, they're increasingly bemused by what they've found, encountering technical issues and bizarre design choices, including the outlandish, but nonetheless entertaining, campaign.

One need only consult the Steam reviews, where Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is currently sitting at a Mixed rating, for insight as to the problems. "You can't even pause the Black Ops 7 campaign because it's designed like Warzone; it's a disaster. They messed everything up," reads a top review. "The game kicks you for going AFK in Campaign mode!! It kicks you, I repeat, it kicks you!!! And if you resubmit the level, it makes you start from scratch.”

Some are having a real tricky time getting it to run properly, too. "Stuttering, crashing if I alt tab and my mouse feels super floaty/aiming feels off; I don't have this on any other game and I went through all of my settings – nothing fixed it," states another user review.

"Game is laggy and running miserable on pc even with updated drivers. Multiplayer involves dying in less than half a second while being shot less than three bullets in core modes (not hardcore). Seems like a huge downgrade from BO6 despite all new features and remade content," a third writes.

Reactions to the campaign are comedy in themselves. A set-piece involving a gigantic biomechanical soldier is doing the rounds on social media, and onlookers cannot believe what they're seeing. “Wtf is Call of Duty even about nowadays? The last campaign I played was the OG MW3,” says one reply. "This shit is literally a playable Skibidi Toilet video, tears bro," reads a popular quote-tweet.

A second clip, where you're controlling a group of undead, takes place in Vorkuta, from the original Black Ops, and the callback isn't being too warmly received. "Ah of course, because how dare they forget to absolutely shit on the legacy of one of gaming's single greatest campaign missions," says one Twitter user.

Our own Black Ops 7 review notes the absurdity here: "It feels like Black Ops 7's campaign is verging on Destiny or even Borderlands territory." Black Ops is a futuristic sci-fi series, giving the devs freedom to take creative liberties. It seems like perhaps they've taken one liberty too many for this go around, even if critic reviews have been more positive for the title.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's Metacritic score narrowly beats Battlefield 6 based on early reviews, earns second-highest rating of the Black Ops series so far

Reviews are dripping in for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and it's looking like a series highlight. Early scores have the seventh installment as the second best in the Black Ops strain, and clean above the franchise's bottom-rated games besides.

At the time of writing, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Metacritic is sitting at 84, just scraping over Battlefield 6's 83, and only three points below the original Black Ops, which stands tall at 87. Almost every other entry from this subset of Call of Duty is between 81 and 83, except poor old Black Ops Cold War, which remains the lowest rated, at 76.

It should be noted that Black Ops 7's score comes from only nine critic reviews at the moment, with many major outlets, including yours truly at GamesRadar+, still to provide scores. Compare this to the 89 for the first Black Ops, and you can see why the number may fluctuate in the coming days, even if we're off to a good start.

Developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Black Ops 7 marks the sixth time the two studios have collaborated on a game in the Black Ops series. Generally more of a multiplayer-focused team, Treyarch tends to focus on the modes outside of the campaign, including the infamous and beloved Call of Duty: Zombies.

Raven Software, then, has handled the single-player story for the last couple of Black Ops games. This is in addition to developing and supporting Warzone, Call of Duty's massive, stand-alone battle royale mode; a busy studio, to say the least.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is out now. Check out our Black Ops 7 release time guide to make sure you can access it.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is adding fan-favorite weapon Maddox and the Standoff map, and FPS fans are let's gooo-ing all over the place: "They are way too good at roping us back in every. damn. time"

As someone who holds Black Ops 2 in the highest regard amongst the Call of Duty pantheon, Black Ops 7's return to the near future, this time in 2035, is an exciting prospect after a blast from the past with last year's Black Ops 6. Right from the first mission, gunfights feel as slick as ever as my co-op squad mates and I immediately disregard stealth and go loud.

But then, after a mishap with a mind-altering bioweapon, giant machetes suddenly start raining from the sky and I'm locked in an honest-to-goodness, health bar-chipping boss fight with David Mason's old nemesis Raul Menendez and his nightmarish minions – Black Ops has always been weird, but am I even playing a Call of Duty game anymore?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is unquestionably ambitious, both in its commitment to a campaign experience that's radically unique from its predecessors and in its attempt to jam so much in across the campaign, multiplayer, Zombies, and PvE-only extraction mode Endgame. For the most part, it's a polished experience that draws on Black Ops 6's bones while infusing it with the DNA of Black Ops 2, making for a Call of Duty game that isn't afraid to experiment and get truly wild. But, in aiming at so many targets, Black Ops 7 doesn't always hit its mark.

Guilded age

Set 10 years after 2012's Black Ops 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 sees David 'Section' Mason being called back from retirement because (in true Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker fashion) somehow, Raul Menendez returned. The arms-dealer-turned-populist-revolutionary-and-social-media-legend is back from the dead with a threatening video message for a world left vulnerable by the anarchy caused by his Cordis Die group in 2025 and beyond. But the Guild – a tech giant built from the bones of the criminal organization of the same name that featured in Black Ops 6 – is ready to step in with the promise of peace.

It's an interesting premise that nicely builds on the fallout from Black Ops 2, even if it does now force a canon set of choices for that game, but it's unfortunately backed up by some flimsy and rushed storytelling. The intro cutscenes just about get the ball rolling with the setting but as Black Ops 6's now elderly Troy Marshall explains to Mason that the Guild is running a psy-op at its Mediterranean Avalon HQ that might (somehow) be linked to Menendez, you're suddenly thrust into the action.

A mere 20 minutes later, Mason (Milo Ventimiglia) and his team of mentally scarred veterans, known as Spectre One, have a run-in with Emma Kagan (Kiernan Shipka), the Guild's CEO who wastes no time letting them know how moustache-twirlingly evil she and her company are. Kagan was very clearly going to be the true villain in this story, but I didn't think the façade would drop so quickly, leaving her and the Guild as nothing more than classic world domination types.

I expected there to be at least a bit of fruitless poking around, making it seem like the Guild's mission was genuine, but any sense of mystery is practically non-existent. And any hope of salvaging something interesting from this plot thread are later scuppered by a couple of weightless twists delivered through cutscenes and mission dialogue, keeping the story simple and, at times, nonsensical, with barely any noteworthy stakes. For what was billed as a mind-bending campaign, my mind felt quite unbent by the end.

Tripping over

Even though the story is weak, I can't deny that the developers at Treyarch and Raven had a clear vision of what they wanted Black Ops 7's co-op campaign to be and went all out, getting unexpectedly weird with its psychological premise. It's just that that vision is too bizarre and completely incongruous with player expectations.

The campaign is, at least, very linear, but levels alternate between typical Call of Duty set piece missions and monotonous objective scrambles in large chunks of the huge Avalon maps (which was a huge letdown in our Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 review too). However, in the case of Black Ops 7, these set pieces are twisted memory hallucinations that manifest as a result of Specter One's exposure to Cradle, the Guild's experimental fear gas key to their global takeover.

Set in various locations from Black Ops history, these missions are certainly engaging, packing action and visuals that range from genuinely interesting to downright baffling – giant machetes falling from the sky, grotesque plant monsters in a hellish Angolan swamp, physics-breaking Los Angeles highways, and, of course, monstrous Michael Rooker pummelling an aircraft carrier. These levels are undoubtedly odd, often feeling like a nostalgic Black Ops 2 highlight reel gone wrong (though they do result in some unintentionally hilarious objectives like "End The Nightmare" and "Preserve The Memories") but I'm more offput by the whole co-op campaign's uninspired game design than the visual weirdness of these levels.

Every Avalon enemy, from the scrubbiest of Guild soldiers to the most durable drones, has a visible health bar, which results in human enemies that can be holier than Swiss cheese before they kick the bucket. Hallucinations and areas of high Cradle concentration see you fighting nightmarish, angry-red forms of these Guild soldiers as well as hideous spider creatures, acid-spitting flies, and manifestations of fear itself, which are just redressed zombies from Zombies mode. Mix in stat-boosting level ups and, by the end, Spectre One is essentially the JSOC Avengers shooting enemies that feel like bullet black holes. It just feels so wrong for a Call of Duty campaign.

Several levels also feature boss fights which are, for the most part, mechanically quite dull and largely unnecessary, feeling more like Destiny 2 Strike bosses with all their immune phases, teleporting, and minions. As an example, one mission in Avalon sees Spectre One under fire from an elite Guild sniper who teleports around several rooftops and repeats the same few quips ("Heads Up!", "Gotcha!") while trying to blow your head off, like a game of whack-a-mole if the mole had a Barrett 50 Cal. My co-op team quickly figured out that simply spreading out across the rooftops then shooting her in the face with a brain-melting amount of firepower over and over was the path of least resistance.

The ultimate showcase of this design approach is the campaign's true final mission, Endgame. It's effectively a replayable PvE-only extraction mode set on the entire unremarkable Avalon map, filled with all sorts of random objectives and events to complete. Broadly, it's just a mashup of almost everything you've seen already in the campaign, now with a new progression and upgrade system slapped on and a more open sandbox. It's perfectly fine for some casual NPC blasting early on but the intensity and difficulty of Endgame's endgame reduce the mode to an unrewarding slog, making for a largely inoffensive but also not especially thrilling mode.

Cutting about Avalon and battling the Guild and shambling nightmares with a squad at least makes most of the shortcomings of the campaign and Endgame more tolerable. But it's clear that the more experimental aspects of Black Ops 7's campaign miss more than they hit. I respect Treyarch's attempt to go bonkers and make the weirdest Call of Duty setting possible, but this is a definite misfire.

Many chambers

While Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's campaign and Endgame mode don't hit their marks, the rest of this huge game is much more bearable. Multiplayer is, unsurprisingly, very well-refined, as you'd expect from developers that have been iterating on industry-leading online competitive play for nearly 20 years at this point.

Going into my first match, I was concerned that the addition of wall-jumping would be a big shakeup that goes against the general desire felt across mainstream FPSs for grounded gameplay, but that isn't the case. Instead, wall-jumping fits in nicely with the existing improved Omnimovement mechanics, allowing for enhanced map traversal without feeling difficult to pull off.

Elsewhere, custom loadouts have a couple of new options to bear in mind, helping you customize your class to a ridiculous degree. The most notable additions are Overclocks – unlockable upgrades for tactical and lethal equipment, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks – that add improvements and sometimes alter how they function – and the hybrid perk specializations that build on Black Ops 6's perk specializations system. Add these to the existing gunsmith options and Wildcards and you've got a custom loadout system that is loaded with depth but also right on the edge of overcomplication.

Overall, combat feels slick and fast-paced without being absolute carnage and impossible to follow, but it can't escape the feeling that this is a reheated version of last year's multiplayer with only a few revisions. Still, its 16 launch maps lean on Treyarch's standard three-lane layout, which continues to prove a winning formula. Revamped versions of Black Ops 2 classics, meanwhile – like Raid, Express, and the still-excellent Hijacked – are great anchors that effectively help Black Ops 7 feel like it's celebrating a real FPS legacy, maybe ever more so than the campaign.

It's just a shame that legacy is also tarnished by a slew of calling cards and other player card cosmetics that have been at least partially created with generative AI tools. I can't help but feel like this cheapens the ladder of reward unlocks significantly, especially since it was also previously undisclosed on Steam. Like the haphazard campaign, there's no escaping the sense that much less care has been taken over some areas of this multi-mode release than others, and it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.

While there are plenty of the usual suspects when it comes to modes (Team Deathmatch, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and plenty more), there is a new capture the flag-style mode called Overload which can be a lot of fun and highly competitive. There's also the larger 20 versus 20 Skirmish mode, which I don't get on with this as well as regular multiplayer, the spaces feeling too large and empty for a moveset that otherwise champions mastery over denser spaces – for me, larger-scale warfare is best left to Battlefield.

Zombies is similarly refined, with Ashes of the Damned, acting as a great opening statement for Black Ops 7's take on the eccentric horde mode (with loads of updates for this mode specifically in the works). Mechanically, it's like a souped-up version of Black Ops 2's Tranzit, featuring a massive figure-8 map and an upgradeable truck called Ol' Tessie which you get to drive through the winding roads of the arcane Dark Aether yourself. Increased freedom, control, and scale make this a mode you can seriously get lost in – but this time I mean that only as a sincere compliment. There are also plenty of opportunities for things to go wrong in both hilarious and frustrating ways – as ever, this is a mode best played with pals.

The numbers, Mason, go up

One of Black Ops 7's biggest changes is that it's the first Call of Duty game to have a global progression system. That means you earn career and weapon XP and can complete challenges across the co-op campaign, Endgame, multiplayer, and Zombies. On paper, that sounds excellent, rewarding players no matter what they're playing but, in practice, I find this system has a homogenizing effect on the whole of Black Ops 7 that leaves a bad taste.

Initially, I liked the fact I could level up weapons I wouldn't typically use in multiplayer by taking them into other modes. The MK78 light machine isn't for me in multiplayer but Rambo-ing it in Zombies means I still get to unlock its attachments. But when Warzone-style armor plating and shambling zombie enemies bleed into the campaign and those guitar-shredding "level up", "unlock", and "challenge complete" stabs that I associate most with multiplayer prove practically inescapable, it all starts to seem the same. It feels more like the game is terrified of me losing interest, relentlessly throwing doodads at me rather than providing anything especially unique.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is inarguably the biggest Black Ops game there has ever been, with a huge array of activities and modes that can all be reasonably enjoyed with friends but rarely solo. Pair that with its bizarre campaign and Black Ops 7 is also the wackiest Call of Duty out there that is, unfortunately, more a triumph of quantity over quality.

I respect the developers at Treyarch, Raven, and the eight other Activision studios that supported for taking this unconventional approach under immense time pressure, trying to keep things fresh, but there are many design choices that I can't fully get behind. While pushing the boundaries of what a Call of Duty game can be is an exciting idea, there are perhaps some aspects that should stick to a safer approach. Bigger, after all, doesn't always mean better.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was reviewed on PS5, with some additional testing on PC, with code provided by the publisher.

Check out our best Call of Duty games ranking for more!

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 isn't getting an early access launch, Activision has confirmed.

In normal circumstances, this wouldn't be news. Black Ops 7 launches November 14 on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC, and neither Treyarch nor Activision has said anything about an early access period beyond the beta that ended last month. However, rumors began circulating about an early access release this past weekend when Forbes posted an article seemingly erroneously claiming the $100 Vault Edition of the game includes 72 hours of early access from November 11 to launch.

Forbes has since updated its article "following a conversation with representatives from Activision" in order to "ensure accuracy," and it no longer says anything about Black Ops 7 early access. Furthermore, Activision has confirmed with Charlie Intel that there's no Black Ops 7 early access and that the game launches at the same time on November 14 for everyone, no matter what edition they bought. I was also able to confirm this with an Activision spokesperson following the publication of this article.

Our resident Call of Duty head (and GR+ EIC) Josh West recently went hands-on with Black Ops 7 and broke down his 10 big takeaways, calling it a "true sequel" that "builds on the foundations of its predecessor, tempering pace of play while adding more mobility and tactical options than ever to create an online mode that feels truly different." Seems like a good enough reason to look forward to November 14, even if you have to wait in line with everyone else.

Treyarch admits Black Ops 7 "controller players are winning slightly more in close-range" thanks to aim assist, says it's reworking it while Raven eyes similar changes for Warzone

We're so back. Or so I'm told by the throngs of Call of Duty players reacting to the news that Treyarch is bringing back a few fan-favorite bits and bobs for season one of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

In today's season one preview dev talk, senior director of production Yale Miller calls the first season of Black Ops 7 "the biggest season we have ever done in franchise history." Big words, and apparently justified words, as people are absolutely wigging out over some of these additions, in particular the return of the fan-favorite Maddox RFB Black Ops 4 as well as remasters of classic maps Standoff and Meltdown, which we haven't seen on the big screen since 2012's Black Ops 2.

On top of all that, Treyarch is bringing back its popular crossbow and ballistic knife, which yes, means Sticks and Stones mode is also featured in the huge season one update, in addition to Prop Hunt and some limited-time seasonal stuff still yet to be revealed.

Here are just a few of my favorite unhinged reactions to the news from various Call of Duty communities online:

"They are way too good at roping us back in every. damn. time. With that said, COD might be back."

"Meltdown SND, UNC is back."

"Standoff, the Maddox and a round based zombies map wow Treyarch please don’t introduce me to a vibe you can’t maintain."

"They might be going too crazy off the rip. We haven’t had something this promising in so long they could’ve spaced it out a bit fr😭This is dope tho, good work Treyarch."

"IM SO FUCKING WET"

"MADDOX FUCK YEAH"

All in all, Black Ops 7 season one will come with seven "signature" 6v6 maps, seven new weapons, three new zombies maps, the aforementioned remasters, new Zombies content and new augments, and "much more" Treyarch is keeping a lid on for now.

Black Ops 7 launches November 14, and season one is expected to debut shortly after.

Treyarch admits Black Ops 7 "controller players are winning slightly more in close-range" thanks to aim assist, says it's reworking it while Raven eyes similar changes for Warzone

It's finally here – two decades after the first title from Troika Games and Activision launched, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 has released… but its reviews show a mixed bag of reactions from newcomers to the RPG and longtime fans of the original alike.

Vampire stans and Bloodlines fans have been united under their excitement for the big Bloodlines follow-up, developed by Still Wakes the Deep studio The Chinese Room and published by Paradox Interactive, for quite some time now – but it appears the new RPG isn't exactly delivering on its hype. The Steam page for Bloodlines 2, which just landed last night, shows "Mixed" reviews so far… and quite a few disappointed players.

"This is not Bloodlines 2," one person exclaims in their review, saying "the game you wish this was" was canceled long ago. Another writes, "Much like you stole another vampire's power from the start, this 'sequel' is Bloodlines in name only." Various players liken the new game not to the OG Bloodlines but to other, more linear titles. "It's infinitely closer to Zeno Clash and Dishonored's lovechild," as somebody puts it.

Further down in the reviews, a fan explains that, "It really depends on your expectations. I personally really enjoy it so far and just treat it as vampire Dishonored." To be completely fair, there are plenty of "Positive" comments too – much like that one – but overall, it seems that hardened Bloodlines stans aren't thrilled with the sequel. Reddit sheds more light on folks' thoughts, with one thread reading, "If you didn't want your game compared to VTMB, you shouldn't have named it VTMB 2."

Another post describes how "the repeat enemies are just embarrassing" in Bloodlines 2, alluding to the controversial launch of Cyberpunk 2077: "Even Cyberpunk on release, which was criticized for lack of NPC diversity, was nowhere near as bad as this." Other player discussions on the forum see people criticizing everything from the lack of manual saves to the inability to dance in the game's nightclubs.

As our own Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 review declares, the "blunt-toothed sequel is just a boring, linear action brawler" rather than the engaging RPG fans of the first game expected – and it looks like others largely agree.

Searching for new games to play after trying Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 for yourself? Be sure to browse our roundup for more.

Controller and keyboard players have always been at odds, like a baby in a Pantera shirt. There's just something wrong with the picture – controller players often benefit from aim assist, while mouse-and-keyboard experts have accuracy as an advantage. They're different, but, according to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 developer Treyarch, they're also both right.

Treyarch design director Matt Scronce explains in a new dev talk video: In Black Ops 7's beta, "controller players are winning slightly more in close-range engagements, and then keyboard-mouse players are winning slightly more in those long-range engagements." Rebalancing aim assist is the obvious answer, and Call of Duty: Warzone Raven Software will do the same for its game.

"What we're going to do here is to try to close that gap," says Scronce, "take a very close look at the strength of aim assist across all of those ranges. And then, additionally, we are looking at rotational aim assist and the requirement for your right aim stick to be moving in the direction of your target."

Like the good friend – and piece of integrated software – that it is, Raven is following suit, writing in a Twitter post that "in parity with Black Ops 7 Multiplayer, we will be working with @Treyarch to explore potential adjustments to rotational aim assist and aim assist strength on controller in Season 01 of Call of Duty: Warzone." Neither Treyarch nor Raven have specified the details of how they'll do this yet, though I'm sure whatever they decide will bring harmony to controller and keyboard players once and for all.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 will now let players aim down sights "while sliding, diving, and wall jumping" without hated dexterity perk, and it's also adding louder footsteps.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 developer Treyarch heard your beta feedback loud and clear, and has just announced in an October 21 dev talk video that it's making the Dexterity perk optional while accessing aim down sights in motion. Still, Treyarch would love to hear you even louder and more clearly, and so it's also making footstep noises more audible.

"The team looked at all of our options, and ultimately landed on providing the most fluid experience by default – which does mean we've reintroduced the ability to aim down sights while sliding, diving, and Wall Jumping," says Treyarch design director Matt Scronce. This ability was standard in Black Ops 6, but, originally, Scronce told GamesRadar+, "we're being a bit more intentional with our combat, just at a baseline" in Black Ops 7.

"If you do want to get a little more aggressive with your movement," he said then, "we will have perks that allow you to do that."

Now, Scronce explains in Treyarch's dev talk video that Dexterity will only enhance ADS (aim down sights) while you slide around – it's not required. So Black Ops 7 players will be able to glide around their maps like Beyblade princesses, but they'll also need to mind their clomping.

The Black Ops 7 beta featured nearly undetectable footstep squeaks, so Scronce says Treyarch has "slightly increased the volume of our footsteps in multiplayer."

"We're very happy with where they're at, where it's going to incentivize more stealth playstyles without over-indexing on the need for the Ninja perk," he continues.

Fans have never been more glad to be fat-footed.

"They nailed it. Perfect changes to the perks and defaulting Omni movement back to being able to ADS," says esports champion Parasite on Twitter. "Fkn W."

I played Black Ops 7 multiplayer for 4 hours, and here's my 10 takeaways you need to know.

Glen Schofield is best known these days for leading the creation of the original Dead Space, but he had a long stint at Activision as co-director and producer on Call of Duty titles like the original Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare, and WW2. While he's long since parted ways with the series, he says he's still pretty worried about the shape it will take under Microsoft's ownership.

"Well, I mean, first of all if they go to not every year, they lose a billion dollars every year, so that’s why Call of Duty never did that," Schofield tells VGC when asked if he has any worries about where COD will go as an Xbox franchise.

"I worry about it immensely, I really do," he continues. "Because what's happening to Gears of War, where's Halo… you know what I mean? And you look at EA, you look at these big companies, and I’m like where’s the Strike games? Where’s this game? And there are so many that just fall by the wayside."

The Strike series isn't one that gets a lot of memorializing these days – it's a line of overhead shooters where you control a military helicopter, released on platforms ranging from the Genesis to the PS1 – but it is an example of one of the numerous IPs that has turned to dust in the EA vaults. It might be tough to imagine the same thing ever happening to Call of Duty, but to Schofield's point, series like Halo and Gears of War have certainly fallen in prestige under the banner of modern Xbox.

"Unfortunately, once you're assimilated by one of these companies," Schofield says, "I think you take on some of their traits." And, he argues, Call of Duty is already falling off, saying that "since I left Sledgehammer, none of the games have been very good."

We'll soon see what the first stage of Xbox's Call of Duty looks like with Black Ops 7 launching next month. For now, check out our guide to all the Black Ops 7 maps for a leg up on launch.

Treyarch has confirmed that, after testing during the beta, skill-based matchmaking will no longer be the default for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

With pressure from Battlefield 6 being put on this year, scrutiny towards Call of Duty is at an all-time high as we head to Black Ops 7's release. Activision has been taking steps to counter what ex-Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra predicts will be a "boot stomp" from EA's shooter, such as introducing a free trial of Black Ops 6 alongside Battlefield's release. This pressure has also prompted Treyarch to hit the panic button and finally heed fan requests to remove skill-based matchmaking during the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta via a new playlist.

This mode received massive praise from the community, with pros saying "We need Battlefield 6 to come out every year," and CoD disliker and former FPS pro Shroud saying "It's actually kind of enjoyable." When SBMM was brought back to get more feedback, everyone hated it again.

And yet despite ignoring pleas for years, Treyarch has finally done it. As announced on Twitter, the studio said, "At launch, Open Matchmaking with minimal skill consideration will be the default matchmaking for Black Ops 7," Adding that, "Our team is committed to providing players with a more varied experience, and the Beta was a valuable opportunity to test this approach."

Naturally, the responses to this tweet are filled with celebrations from players, streamers, and everyone else. And alongside this, Battlefield 6 is getting praise, with one user saying, "Who would’ve thought that Battlefield 6 might be the best thing that’s ever happened to CoD."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 devs hear your door hate, immediately respond with a list of changes like "forcing specific automatic doors to remain open from the start of the match."

It's launch week for Battlefield 6 and Activision is seemingly firing shots. As the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta closes, Black Ops 6 is becoming available for free for exactly one week.

As of October 9, you can get stuck into last year's major Call of Duty release for the sweet price of nothing. This trial includes the entire game: campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies, giving you a chance to try out anything you might be curious about.

Black Ops 6 will be playable as such for one week, ending on October 16. If you're efficient enough, you can definitely squeeze out the story and get a few hours of multiplayer within that timeframe.

Word to the wise: Zombies has long been the secret weapon of the Call of Duty series, and if you haven't yet, I highly suggest you dive in there. Since being introduced as a gimmick in World at War, the undead-killing mode has become its own rotting beast with expansive lore and gameplay that’s more strategic than you might think.

This seems like another passive jab between Activision and EA, who've been seemingly lowkey trading blows over having both new Call of Duty and new Battlefield arrive this year. EA and the Battlefield 6 team have been adamant about keeping a "grounded" strategy for skins, in direct contrast to Call of Duty's penchant for silly crossovers.

There probably aren't many players interested in playing a slightly outdated Call of Duty right as its biggest rival gets a new installment who haven't already rinsed it, but free is free. If Activision turns even a few thousand heads here that'll be a win, and possibly some added Blops 7 pre-orders to boot.

As Battlefield 6 keeps skins grounded, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 goes the other way by carrying over all of Black Ops 6's goofy skins as devs are still "figuring out" how to keep everyone happy

Arc Raiders developer Embark Studios has seemingly responded to reports of the words "Arc Raiders" being censored in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 lobbies.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta has been live for a few days now, and over the weekend, a Reddit post began circulating that seemingly showed the words "Arc Raiders" appearing only as asterisks in CoD chat lobbies. This was confirmed by our colleagues over at PC Gamer, who found that you could type "arc" and "raiders" into separate messages just fine, but when typed together they would appear censored.

Arc raiders being censored in the black ops 7 beta lol from r/ArcRaiders

Now, it's only natural to assume this was a brazen attempt by Activision to censor out the name of one of its upcoming competitors, and it's possible that's the case, but if so, why not censor, you know, Battlefield 6? Far and away Black Ops 7's most direct and formidable competition.

For its part, Activision has said (via PC Gamer) that the censorship was simply an error having to do with lobbies' text filters.

Meanwhile, Kotaku now reports that the censorship has been patched out and that you can type "Arc Raiders" into Black Ops 7 without issue. I can independently confirm that no asterisks were present when I typed the game's title in a Black Ops 7 lobby on PC.

Error or not, Embark is taking it all in stride, joking on X, "We're still on track to release *** ******* on October 30th!" There's also a promotional image of Arc Raiders attached where the game title is censored out. Good stuff.

I think I'm inclined to give Activision the benefit of the doubt here, as much as I never thought I'd say that. Again, why seemingly only Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter from a much smaller, Stockholm-based independent studio? Also, Activision had to have known that trying to censor a game title would only inevitably draw more attention to that game via social media chatter and news articles like this one. I have to believe Activision is smarter than that.

I don't know, it sounds to me like whatever text filtration software Activision is using for Black Ops 7 lobbies just had "Arc Raiders" on the bad list for whatever reason. But I'm also wildly averse to conspiratorial thinking generally. Either way, I'm glad to see the Arc Raiders devs aren't too offended.

The 5th most-wishlisted game on Steam, ex-Battlefield devs' extraction shooter Arc Raiders, was delayed 3 years because they realized it sucked: "This game is not fun"

Call of Duty fans are reacting positively to Black Ops 7's new mode – which removes skill-based matchmaking – and are thanking EA for forcing Activision's hand.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta was going strong over the weekend, with players getting their first chance to play this year's Call of Duty multiplayer. However, not content to leave a static experience up, Treyarch updated the beta throughout the weekend, with new modes and the return of some weapons based on player feedback. One such change was the implementation of two new playlists, Moshpit – the classic playlist that cycles through different game modes – and Open Moshpit.

"In Open Moshpit, skill consideration is drastically reduced when matchmaking," Treyarch explains on the Call of Duty website, saying that this has been implemented "with the goal of providing more varied match experiences and outcomes. This playlist will match players with and against players of more varied skill differences than in the current Multiplayer matchmaking system." Effectively, this is a playlist that removed the often-derided skill-based matchmaking.

And naturally, CoD pros are happy, with SpawnUp posting a clip of Scump streaming with Nadeshot and Octane while the three celebrate. All three are psyched about the news, with one of the players expressing their pleasure with a very NSFW comment you'll need to hear for yourself. However, Nadeshot's own statement is the highlight, as he says, "We need Battlefield 6 to come out every year."

While a funny comment in its own right, Battlefield streamer MoiDawg makes a point that "Call of Duty is worried about their sales for the first time in a decade" in reference to Battlefield 6's extremely positive beta reception, adding that "the players are finally being listened to." MoiDawg also mentions that "Money is the only reason Black Ops 7 is making changes." I'm inclined to agree – it doesn't matter whether it's fighting games, shooters, wrestling, or supermarkets, competition always makes things better.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 devs hear your door hate, immediately respond with a list of changes like "forcing specific automatic doors to remain open from the start of the match"

For a first-person shooter, there's no greater honour than a musical theme from Trent Reznor. It's only ever been bestowed on two games: Id Software's Quake, and Treyarch's Black Ops II. Both were studios at the peak of their pop cultural powers, commanding the kind of crossover appeal that publishers dream of but rarely achieve. In 2012, a new Call Of Duty campaign was still a catalyst for water-cooler conversation, including one in Reznor's studio. "I think I have played them all," he told USA Today at the time, "with the exception of one or two that may have come out when I was on long touring jaunts."

The theme Reznor composed for Black Ops II is a muted, bass-led mood piece. It growls more than it barks, and when it finally bites – with teeth, to use the language of Nine Inch Nails – it comes as a shock. "There is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface," said Reznor. "So it didn't make sense to have a gung-ho, patriotic-feeling kind of theme song. It has to feel weighty."

In that explanation, and over five-and-a-half minutes of industrial unease, Reznor captures the character that distinguishes Black Ops from its peers in the COD canon. This is a sub-series composed from the disjointed memories of traumatised soldiers. In the original Black Ops, Treyarch looked over the CIA's history of foreign intervention and mental programming with a distrustful eye. In the sequel, it catalogues the generations of pain left behind by the people weaponised in those conflicts.

The campaign's primary protagonist is David Mason, son of Alex Mason, the latter of whom starred in many of the most troubling scenes of the original Black Ops. In fact, Mason Sr is an early member of triple-A's distant fathers club, which many have suggested is a symptom of the crunch that takes game developers away from their own families. The Last of Us' Joel would join the following year. "Go back to the army," a young David mutters cattily in an opening cutscene. "Like you did when mom died." In those early hours, Black Ops II regularly returns to the failed states where Alex Mason made his mark, for better or worse. The man is the Forrest Gump of morally dubious US missions: name a coup or invasion, and he was there, taping somebody to a chair.

Biggest op

Unlike the Modern Warfare games, however, Black Ops II isn't interested in telling a global story. Though it hops between continents and nominally concerns a new cold war, the game specialises in manhunts – much like the real-life JSOC organisation that Mason Jr grows up to join. Whether in Angola, Panama, Afghanistan or Yemen, the local ideologies and power struggles at play are backgrounded in favour of matters personal to the Mason family. In the early Call Of Duty games you at least had a sense of what you were fighting for; in Black Ops II you are simply fighting towards. And the thing you are grasping for is Raul Menendez.

Menendez is the sort of villain who insists that you are the same, you and he – though in fairness to the Nicaraguan arms dealer, he does vary the wording somewhat. "We are the same, David," he purrs. "Shaped by those we have lost." Menendez has lost his sister, Josefina, to Alex Mason's squad during a raid in Nicaragua; David has lost his father in a vengeful and rather convoluted plot by Menendez. Like an Aeschylus tragedy yelled over the sound of machine gun fire, this story is one of a cycle of revenge – one that continues until after the credits roll.

These personal motivations fold neatly into the working lives of black operatives, and reflect the dark CIA history Treyarch taps into: Americans fighting wars that aren't their own for ulterior motives. In theory, they should help glue together the plot too, focusing your attention on the characters, rather than the factions and time periods the protagonists pass through.

In truth, though, Treyarch turned in a deeply confusing campaign – one in which a simple story is told in the most complicated possible fashion. Not only is game director Dave Anthony fond of non-chronology, but he laces dialogue with the acronyms and codenames that are part and parcel of COD's military fetish. Batman screenwriter David S Goyer gets a credit, but after handling The Dark Knight's many moving parts with deft coherence, the juggling act falls apart here. It says much that during Black Ops II's final mission, a general we've never seen or heard from before pops up in the corner of the screen to remind us what the state of the world was and who the major players were.

Worse, Treyarch fumbles when handling the personal stories it so desperately wants to tell. In one level that finds Menendez freed by none other than Manuel Noriega – for no Black Ops game is complete without a cameo from a real-life dictator – you control the villain as he single-handedly cuts through an army to reunite with his sister. "Rarrrgh," he screams, more than once. "Josefina!". It's an awkward sequence to play, as the game upends the usual rules of hit points and movement, turning Menendez into a speeding tank in a bid to reflect his protective bloodlust.

At points the mission restricts your weapon choice to ensure messy takedowns, and flushes the screen with red filters. At others, a still image of Josefina's childhood face flashes embarrassingly across your vision, frozen in time before her disfigurement in a terrible fire. You have to admire Treyarch for attempting such outsized romanticism in a military shooter, but it's a heavy-handed portrayal of trauma, to say the least.

Over and over, Black Ops II establishes Treyarch as both the trashiest and most experimental COD studio on Activision's roster. This was the game that dared to interweave its main missions with a hybrid RTS mode called Strike Force, in which you could zoom out to bird's-eye view with a button, and select to play as another soldier, turret or vehicle instead – taking Modern Warfare's perspective-swapping shtick to its most extreme conclusion. Strike Force didn't work very well, since it was predictably tricky to command the battle as you participated in it, and didn't return for future entries, but we can't fault the daring on show.

Ditto the branching story, much of which might be news even to those who have played the campaign through. Black Ops II's choices fluctuate between the hokily overt – handing you a gun to choose who lives and dies, not once, but three times – and subtle to a fault. One variation to the plot hinges on whether you pick up a particular file found in Menendez's compound in 1986. Another depends on your catching up to a kidnapped scientist during a rescue mission, and with no explicit timer, you're left with little indication that you've tilted the game's ending in dramatic fashion. In the context of a series that often plays like an interactive theme park ride, it's genuinely shocking to learn that your success or failure in a mission wasn't predetermined.

The rescue mission marks a high point in the campaign, as Mason Jr and friends visit a floating island resort named Colossus. Effectively a super-yacht scaled up to the size of a city, Colossus is a hideaway for the one per cent, and the sole place where Treyarch's vision of 2025 convinces. The spectacle is breathtaking, and the mission's brutality is juxtaposed playfully with calming hotel muzak. It feels as if a studio with the dial stuck to ten might finally have learned dynamics from Reznor. The mastery collapses minutes later, however, in a nightclub shootout. As terrorists open fire on civilians, Treyarch moves the shooting into slow-mo and pumps up the Skrillex. In an age when club shootings have become a part of our horrible reality, playing the scene for style feels tone-deaf in the extreme.

For the most part, the future setting is an excuse for Treyarch to let loose with its gadgets. In 2025, no door is simply unlocked, but willed open by a wrist pad with the design sensibility of an N-Gage. Often you'll be looking down on your protagonist as they tap away at a brightly coloured screen, through an implied AR display that itself fills your peripheral vision with illuminated lines and indicators. Black Ops II is missing the grounding minimalism that guides the very best science fiction.

Still: you can't say Treyarch doesn't know itself. Its second cold war begins when China bans the export of rare earth elements – effectively cutting off America from its drones, and presumably also the computers and televisions that the studio loves so dearly. Every Call Of Duty developer has to find a global catastrophe that personally keeps it up at night, and Treyarch invented its own worst nightmare. By the end of the game you're in the developer's LA backyard, explicitly preventing the death of capitalism.

Whether that nightmare is one shared by its audience is another matter. Menendez leads a popular movement against the super-rich and is, as far as the world knows, a peaceful activist. The idea that a figure like that might also be a narco-terrorist on the side – well, it's a paranoid right-wing fever dream. It's small wonder, then, that after the game's release, Anthony was snapped up by a Washington think tank dedicated to imagining non-traditional threats to America. Treyarch's nightmares turned out to be those of the US establishment.

Aim down sights for our best Call of Duty games ranking!

Early Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta access has begun, and those early players are about as united as FPS fans can get in their criticism of one specific feature: doors. 24 hours later, the devs responded by clarifying how prolific doors will be in the full game and promising changes to make them less annoying in the beta maps.

"While there are no manual doors in any Black Ops 7 Multiplayer maps," the devs say in a new blog post, "only five of our 16 6v6 maps at launch will have automatic doors. With that said, we are closely following the community discussion about doors on our Beta maps and evaluating our launch and post-launch portfolio of maps."

An "upcoming update" will make the following changes to those doors:

• Forcing specific automatic doors to remain open from the start of the match.
• Increasing how long automatic doors remain open before they close.
• Increasing the distance a player needs to be from the door before it will automatically open.
• Players can still shoot automatic doors to open them.

The full launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is just over a month away, and with that kind of turnaround time betas can often feel more like demos – in other words, marketing tools rather than genuine efforts to get a game into players' hands for feedback and improvement.

But associate creative director Miles Leslie tells us that Treyarch "1000%" intends to implement feedback from the beta into the full launch of Black Ops 7. "We welcome all constructive feedback – 'constructive' being the key thing there."

Here are all the Black Ops 7 beta rewards you need to know about.

With Black Ops 7, Call of Duty is heading into uncharted territory. On November 14, 2025, Treyarch is delivering back-to-back installments to the Black Ops franchise for the first time in the series' history.

Through extensive, exclusive interviews with the developers at Treyarch in recent weeks, we learned that Black Ops 7 has two primary goals. It's designed to be an expansive love letter to Black Ops 2, the 2012 FPS which many players believe to be the apex of the sub-franchise; and a smart expansion of Black Ops 6, the 2024 shooter that not only introduced Omnimovement, but brought about the return of elements such as classic prestige and round-based zombies.

Black Ops 7 is trying to connect the past with the present to establish a new future for Black Ops. We explore all of that and a great deal more in the GamesRadar+ Big Preview of Black Ops 7. With our exclusive cover story you'll get unprecedented access and insight into the development of this year's Call of Duty, better understanding how the parallel development of Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 has allowed Treyarch to evolve its ambitions and iterate its ideas with the community.

We are also diving deep into the Black Ops 7 campaign, multiplayer, and zombies components after traveling to Call of Duty: Next to get hands-on, and giving you brand new insights into how the return of Black Ops is influencing the next year of Warzone. So keep on reading to find The Big Preview of Black Ops 7, the most extensive and in-depth coverage of 2025's most anticipated shooter.

Dive Deeper into Black Ops 7

Latest Black Ops 7 Videos

Black Ops 7 Campaign Spotlight

Black Ops 7 Multiplayer Spotlight

Black Ops 7 Zombies Spotlight

Warzone Spotlight

Black Ops 7 Beta

It's official – Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is almost upon us, with the competitive shooter's beta period having just commenced yesterday for players with early access… and unsurprisingly, cheaters are apparently already running rampant in-game, too.

The Black Ops 7 beta is now open to fans who have pre-ordered the FPS, with the full open beta beginning this Sunday. Players will have access to the latest Call of Duty for a few days until the beta period wraps up next week – but so far, it hasn't all exactly been smooth sailing for the game's eager community. Even with security features like both Black Ops 7 Secure Boot and Ricochet Anti-Cheat set to be fully integrated at launch, as it stands, cheaters appear to be everywhere.

Players have taken to online forums to highlight the already apparent issue with cheaters in Black Ops 7, with well-known streamers like Stodeh chiming in as well. "This can't be happening in Black Ops 7 ALREADY," exclaims the content creator in a new post, attaching a clip of the supposed cheater in action. "Bro, is this guy cheating in hour three of beta lmao," he asks via the in-game chat. Comments see developers confirming that the cheater was "banned."

Stodeh isn't the only player to seemingly encounter cheaters in the new Black Ops game, however. "First game on beta, and someone is already cheating," another fan writes in a separate thread. They include a video of the apparent unfair kills, too, with fellow fans tagging devs in replies. Elsewhere, a viral clip shows what looks to be wall hacks – cheats that make aim assist look like child's play – being abused by a player tearing through opponents left, right, and center.

"The real reason CoD is declining," responds one fan. Another jokes that the Ricochet Anti-Cheat software is "on vacation." Overall, it's clear that the community isn't thrilled to see cheating already becoming a problem literally hours into the Black Ops 7 beta period.

It's worth noting that a blog post previously confirmed that during the open beta, Ricochet is only set to have "some of its systems online as we test how they perform under live conditions." It was stated that "the full force of our protections will be reserved for launch, when all systems come online together," so hopefully we should see some improvements then.

Note: This article has been altered since its original publication to reflect that only "some" of Ricochet's anti-cheat systems are online during Black Ops 7's beta.

Once you've gathered all the Black Ops 7 rewards while playing the beta yourself, check out our rundown of the other most exciting new games coming this year and beyond.

Update: Following the publication of this article, a Microsoft spokesperson has offered the following comment to GamesRadar+.

"This is not specific to any one game and reflects all games and DLC purchases. Instead of a discount on the purchases, Ultimate and Premium subscribers will earn 10% and 5% - respectively - in points when purchasing select games and add-ons from the Game Pass library. Ultimate members continue to have 20% discount on select games from the Game Pass library.

"On top of that, all Rewards members will earn points when shopping games and add-ons on the Store, while Premium and Ultimate subscribers will earn even more, 2x and 4x respectively. See more detail on the Game Pass Rewards program here."

Original: Following the new price increase, fans have discovered that Xbox Game Pass has also discontinued the discount on Call of Duty Points for subscribers.

The latest Xbox Game Pass price hike has arguably been the biggest shakeup to the service yet, with Microsoft fracturing benefits across three different tiers, with the new middle 'Premium' tier losing out on the benefit of day one games from Xbox Game Studios. Meanwhile, Game Pass Ultimate – which keeps all the benefits – is getting a major price hike. However, players have quickly discovered that Game Pass Ultimate hasn't gone untouched after all.

As spotted by CharlieIntel (via Insider Gaming), Xbox has removed the 10% discount for Call of Duty add-ons such as Call of Duty Points and the BlackCell Battle Pass bundle for Game Pass Ultimate subscribers. As you can imagine, plenty aren't entirely thrilled.

This is another thing that just cements to me that this entire Xbox Game Pass price hike is probably about Call of Duty. Black Ops 6 debuted day one on the subscription last year, presumably as a test from Microsoft to see how it would perform on the subscription.

Given the fact that Call of Duty titles are the only Xbox-published titles excluded from the new Xbox Game Pass Premium subscriptions guarantee that first-party games will arrive within a year of launch, and now this discount has been revoked, I'd wager that Black Ops 6 saw a significant dent from being on Game Pass, and this is an attempt to try and salvage Black Ops 7 now that you can't undo the decision to make it a day one release. That's all speculation, of course, but Call of Duty fans are definitely taking a big hit from these changes.

"Two words: cancel now" – Xbox Game Pass cancelations seemingly surge following Microsoft's tone-deaf post praising "more rewards" amid 50% price hike, and even GameStop's got jokes: "$29.99 every month. Own nothing"

Call of Duty Next featured one of the game's world champions dominating with a new kill streak in Black Ops 7, which works like a non-hack wallhack, and people are already calling for it to be banned.

The yearly Call of Duty Next event typically lines up with our first look at the given Call of Duty release of the year's multiplayer, and this year was no different. Once again, Activision brought players in to play the multiplayer for the first time, with GamesRadar+ Editor-in-Chief Josh West getting his hands on it, who said, "I think we're in for a treat this year."

However, people at home also had a chance to see the gameplay streamed, and already, people are arguing about balance before the game is even out.

Two-time Call of Duty world champion Simp was one of the players at the event, and he went on a tear with the game's new Killstreak known as The Gravemaker. This streak arms you with a sniper rifle that can shoot through walls, and most notably gives you an in-game wallhack scope that lets you see players through said walls, much like the FarSight XR-20 from Perfect Dark for all you elderly people out there.

Of course, some are not happy about this, with YouTubers Bigfry and TimTheTatman both reacting to the footage on Twitter. Tim regaled his stream viewers with screams of "what the fuck is that," while Bigfry simply said, "This game is cooked."

Despite the fact that a pro player like Simp will demolish with any weapon, as PC Gamer points out, isn't the whole point of killstreaks the fact that they're unfair? Like, sure, this wallhack sniper is kind of nuts, but is it any more ridiculous than something like an AC130 or attack chopper? With those, you can at least target enemies in safety, whereas you're still a boots-on-the-ground soldier with this weapon, and presumably, when you die, you lose the streak. Obviously, I'm not a pro Call of Duty player, but I really don't see the problem with this.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's new Endgame mode "is the final proving ground" that could be so challenging you need other co-op teams to help you out.

Call of Duty is finally separating its weapon attachment changes in Warzone from its other games, like the upcoming Black Ops 7, in a move the devs are hopeful will allow for tweaks tailored "specifically for the unique play styles" in the free-to-play shooter.

This news was revealed during a Call of Duty NEXT pre-brief event attended by GamesRadar+. Raven Software senior gameplay engineer Francesco Galletti explains that players can expect plenty of changes to the way weapons are handled, with them notably "being streamlined with the return of five attachments."

He continues: "This past year, we've seen too many players run the same wildcards and walk the same golden path when it comes to weapon builds. For that reason, we think there are ways to make that more interesting, and we're going to do so by first making Overkill by default for everyone, removing wildcards, and fundamentally changing the way we're going about attachment tuning."

This new attachment tuning approach brings about a first for the game. "For the first time in Warzone's history, we're able to tune all the attachments independently of other titles," Galletti says. "What that means is that an attachment in Multiplayer may have completely different stats in Warzone."

Needless to say, Galletti continues, "The team is super excited about this. This is going to allow us to give you guys faster attachment tuning, faster meta shifts, and tune things specifically for the unique play styles in Warzone."

Elsewhere, a new Resurgence mode map has also been revealed. Called Haven's Hollow, the map features a rural setting – a small town by a river, complete with a paddle steamer housing a casino. Outside of the town, you can also find a modern research center, as well as other landmarks including a graveyard, train station, and a huge mansion.

How Treyarch is redefining what Call of Duty can be with Black Ops 7: "Where we're taking this game is so drastically different from a lot of the things we've done before."

I just got my hands on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and I have to say, I think we're in for a treat this year. I'm out at COD: NEXT right now, getting a glimpse into the future of Call of Duty and Warzone. I've played the incoming beta build of Black Ops 7 multiplayer and I'm impressed, both by how smartly Treyarch has built on the foundations of Black Ops 6 and how fresh the new 2035 setting makes everything feel.

There was always a risk that back-to-back Black Ops instalments would make Call of Duty feel a little stale. Thankfully, Activision and Treyarch have really dialled into the elements that made its COD games so legendary, positioning Black Ops 7 as both a love letter to the glory days of Black Ops 2 and a worthy sequel to Black Ops 6. Scorestreaks are brutal, Omnimovement has been refined, and the combat is electric – let's get into it, here are my 10 takeaways from playing Black Ops 7.

10. It's a true sequel to Black Ops 6

Black Ops 7 may be set some 40 years after its predecessor, but this is more refinement than revolution. Treyarch has gone to great lengths to introduce new weaponry (there are 30 in total, including 16 debuting for the first time in franchise history) and Scorestreaks which reflect the 2035 setting, as well as a suite of new maps and modes. But the truth is, Black Ops 7 does feel very much like a refocused version of Black Ops 6. That's a result of Treyarch pursuing the development of these two titles in parallel, with BO7 building off of its predecessor in some smart, albeit clearly iterative ways.

9. Match pace feels more tactical

So, if you found the speed and theatrics of Black Ops 6 multiplayer a little chaotic, then I'm happy to report that Black Ops 7 feels a little more tempered. There have been key refinements to Omnimovement, which certainly help deliver this more grounded experience, but the global TTK (time-to-kill) also feels more balanced. Are there still issues with players being able to wield sniper rifles equipped with greater utility (and firing rate) than your average shotgun? Sure, some things never change. But on the whole, Treyarch appears to have learned some sharp lessons over the last 12 months, wielding player data to finetune its core rhythms and recoil models in a way that's resoundingly positive.

8. Greater control over movement

Treyarch design director Matt Scronce insists that Omnimovement hasn't slowed between Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7, but something has definitely changed. The game feels inherently more mellow than its predecessor, although this may largely be a result of Tactical Sprint being removed as a default movement option – a shift made in an attempt to get a better handle on multiplayer flow throughout Core 6v6 maps. Omnimovement is still outrageous; the ability to sprint, slide, and dive in any direction still brings new dimensions to even the most basic of combat encounters, although it feels more controlled in Black Ops 7. At least, it does until you start experimenting with some of the new mobility-focused loadout Perks.

7. Some previous move tech is now tied to perks

Tactical Sprint isn't the only ability which has been stripped from basic play. You're now unable to ADS on slides and dives either. Although you bring these abilities back into play through the Perks system, as well as plenty of other ways to make Omnimovement larger than life. Every loadout comes equipped with three Perk slots (a fourth too, should you take the necessary Wildcard) which can really help fine tune your preferred playstyle. I believe that the changes to Omnimovement are for the best, although they can be largely reversed by equipping Tac Sprinter (enables Tactical Sprint but reduces your normal sprint speed) and Dexterity (reduced weapon motion and full ADS on slides, dives, and wall jumps) at the cost of other obtaining other abilities.

6. Mixing and matching perk combat specialities now gives special bonuses

Speaking of Perks, I should shout out a great new addition: Hybrid Combat Specialties. Black Ops 6 introduced Combat Specialty, where equipping three Perks of the same category would activate a specific bonus. A nice idea, albeit a little narrow. BO7 will now let you activate Hybrid Combat Specialties when pairing Perks of different categories. Scout (formed of Red and Blue Perks), lets you stay hidden from minimaps for five seconds; Tactician (Red and Green Perks) earns bonus score from kills for 10 seconds when you nail an assist; and Operative (Blue and Green Perks) unlocks a Field Upgrade charge from stealth kills. It's a great change, providing so much scope for locking in preferred playstyles.

5. You can chain wall jumps to reach greater heights

Arguably the biggest addition to the Omnimovement movement system are Wall Jumps. You're now able to kick off from vertical surfaces, chaining up to three jumps to increase your traversal capabilities in Black Ops 7 multiplayer. There's a clear loss in inertia between each jump, which helps maintain some degree of momentum balance. It's a neat concept, although I don't think the maps (at least those available in beta) are designed to make all that much use of the new featureset. I can't help but wish it were a Wall Run rather than a Wall Jump, although Call of Duty is clearly still bearing some baggage from the Advanced and Infinite Warfare fiascos that sent boots back to ground a decade ago.

4. Overclocking is a game defining new feature

One of the biggest changes that Treyarch is shouting about is a new Overclock system, which is designed to let you supercharge your gear during multiplayer. It's an exceptional addition. When creating a class, you'll have the ability to customize your Tactical and Lethal Equipment, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks – with effective unlocking up to two Overclock abilities. It's a really interesting tweak to multiplayer, once again furthering your ability to hone your playstyle. If you're running with the new Psych Grenade, for example, you can either increase the duration that enemies are stunned or enact DoT to anybody caught within its radius. It's a great system, although Black Ops 7 could do a better job of signalling when you're Overclocked and ready to go.

3. Black Ops 7's maps are tightly wound arenas

Black Ops 7 is launching with 16 core 6v6 multiplayer maps this fall, with six staggered through the open beta weekends. Treyarch has very much gone back to basics here, leveraging the legacy of Black Ops 2 to inspire the compositions of its battle spaces. Which is all to say that the Black Ops 7 maps that I played prioritize clear sight lines for short-to-medium length engagements, as well as a clear three-lane design that helps to funnel players towards the frontline. It's early days, and there's still so many maps that we need to see, although the pool does appear to have more solid foundations than the selection available at launch in Black Ops 6.

2. Lethal scorestreaks can make or break matches

Scorestreaks return for Black Ops 7 and for whatever reason, Treyarch has made them especially lethal. The studio has clearly taken feedback on board that the Scorestreaks (awarded to those of you who are able to chain certain actions together in a single life) in Black Ops 6 weren't powerful enough, with the 2035-inspired set proving to be absolutely brutal. Naturally, some old favorites return – the RC-XD is here, and BO7's take on the attack dog (DAWG, the Deployable Armored Weaponized Groundcraft equipped with a large caliber turret and rocket pod) is horrendously brutal. Given that Scorestreaks can also be Overclocked, boosting their utility or efficiency, I have a sinking suspicion that the pool will be rebalanced between beta and release, but we will see!

1. The beta will be a huge moment

The Black Ops 7 beta is split into two sessions. There's an early access component between October 2-5 for those who pre-order the game, and then an open-beta running for everybody else October 5-8. If you're paying attention, you've no doubt realised that this is right on top of Battlefield 6, which launches October 10. It does feel like Call of Duty has very real competition this year, which isn't something I've been able to say for a while now. Treyarch is clearly leveraging that pressure to deliver an excellent multiplayer experience, once which builds smartly on the legacy of Black Ops 2 and feedback received for Black Ops 6. There's still so much I need to see of the Black Ops 7 package, but my early hands-on with the incoming FPS has been exceptionally positive. Bring on the beta!

We've got a handy guide for how to access the Black Ops 7 beta. We'll see you online!

The Call of Duty devs have already been talking up the big anti-cheat features in store for Black Ops 7 for some time, including the fact that it's going to be making use of TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. Today, they've confirmed that these features will be part of the beta, so if you don't want to suffer the same fate as those poor, unfortunate Battlefield 6 beta players, you might want to make sure your PC is ready to go right now.

"On PC, the Black Ops 7 Beta will require TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot," according to a new blog post from the devs. "Together with our upgraded RICOCHET Anti-Cheat detection systems, these features strengthen machine integrity, improve detections, and create a more secure environment that catches more cheating."

Our guide on how to enable Black Ops 7 Secure Boot will get you set up for when Black Ops 7 beta access begins – and if you're not sure what it is, Secure Boot is a Windows security feature that essentially makes sure only safe software is running. It does offer strong protection against cheats – but equally, it's a major annoyance to PC players who don't like overly restrictive security measures digging their way into the lower levels of the hardware.

Either way, Secure Boot is just the start for what the devs are calling "the most advanced and robust anti-cheat protections players will find in gaming." Starting with the beta, they'll be testing "a new generation of machine learning systems and detection tools built to make cheating riskier and less effective." Essentially, they're building an array of AI-based ways to stamp out aimbots and wall hacks.

The Black Ops 7 beta times and dates kick off soon, but in the meantime check out our Big Preview on how Treyarch is redefining what Call of Duty can be with Black Ops 7.

Call of Duty is the fountain of youth; playing any one of its 50-or-so installments seems to bring you right back to your first time with the FPS franchise, which never seems to run out. But, apparently, it's starting to get old, as Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 devs are concerned the game might be too similar to Black Ops 6.

When CharlieIntel (by way of Dexerto) asked Yale Miller, senior director of production at developer Treyarch, if he was concerned that Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 might appear interchangeable, he responded affirmatively. "I think the honest answer is yes. I worry about that," Miller says in the new interview. "Obviously, there was a plan with the two MW games and then this."

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 both also came out in succession, in 2022 and 2023, and the Infinity Ward games were meant as sequels to 2019's Modern Warfare reboot – not to be confused with the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare from 2007, Modern Warfare 2 from 2009, or Modern Warfare 3 from 2011. Anyway.

Similarly, Black Ops 6 released in 2024, while Black Ops 7 is set to launch on November 14, 2025, just over a year later, looking very much the same.

"We'll see what the franchise does in the future," Miller tells CharlieIntel. "We're excited about the opportunities it gave us, but we'd all be dead lying if we said we weren't worried about that."

Black Ops 7 is fighting franchise fatigue in the most unexpected of ways with an ambitious co-op adventure which Treyarch believes can "redefine what campaign can be in Call of Duty."

Former Call of Duty director Glen Schofield decided to stop centering the series' antagonists around real-life countries partly for his own security.

Schofield's long and storied game development career includes co-founding Sledgehammer Games and, under the Activision umbrella, co-directing 2011's, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, 2014's Advanced Warfare, and 2017's WWII.

While they existed in prior entries, Advanced Warfare made Private Military Companies the primary antagonists of the game as an alternative to armed forces inspired by real-world countries, and it turns out there's a very pragmatic reason behind that: Schofield's safety.

Talking to PC Gamer, Schofield recalled a dinner he shared with journalists while doing press for Modern Warfare 3, which is all about an ultranationalist terrorist who usurps control of the Russian government and invades Europe, and his decision to turn down a press trip to Russia out of safety concerns.

"I was doing 30 days of press for Modern Warfare 3," he said. "I'm all over the world, and the last stop is in the UK, and I'm having dinner with some journalists from the UK and I get a call. They say, 'We need you to go to Russia tomorrow and do some more press.' And by then, I was really tired. I'm like, 'Do you know who the enemies are in Modern Warfare 3?'. They're like, 'Don't worry, we'll have a bodyguard with you.' And I'm like, 'I don't feel any better.' And so I was a little worried about that aspect. And so I didn't go."

Schofield remembers immediately going back to his dinner party and telling them directly, "'OK, you know what, my next game is not going to have a country as the enemy. Because I want to go to those countries.'"

Despite Schofield having long since left Activision and explored vastly different ventures (he most recently directed The Callisto Protocol and then left developer Striking Distance), not to mention Call of Duty fully re-embracing real-world global conflict, the series' history was forever altered by Schofield realizing simply, 'Yeah, I'm going to do that, because I don't want to have this problem anymore.' And that's how the PMC started."

Schofield related to PC Gamer that his proximity to an Iraqi refugee during grad school, whose uncle refused to leave the country despite threats from then-president Saddam Hussein, also helped inform his more sensitive approach to geopolitical strife in games.

His relationship with his cohort ultimately inspired Schofield to ask then-Activision president Eric Hirshberg to write a speech to be delivered by Advanced Warfare villain Jonathan Irons, which did make it into the game.

PMCs or not, here are the best Call of Duty games you can play today.

Treyarch's creative director is also excited for Battlefield 6, and has given his two cents as to why Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 should be your FPS of choice this year.

Call of Duty and Battlefield had a somewhat legendary rivalry during the Xbox 360 era. This year, though, marks the return of the beef as Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 are going head to head after years of nothing but Call of Duty. Except this year is different, as Battlefield is going all-in on being down to earth while Black Ops 7 is going straight to the future.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2025, Treyarch associate creative director, Miles Leslie, was asked why he thinks Black Ops is the way to go this year with the return of the head-to-head releases. "I think because we've been working on Black Ops 7 for so long. It has a really strong vision," Leslie says, adding, "We're going into 2035; so new tech, new toys, new gadgets, new locales."

Leslie specifically points out that the Black Ops subseries can do things that would be out of place in other games, like "add the mind-bending, add the twists and turns" with him saying that's something that's present throughout all of games modes. Leslie finishes by saying, "I would say to players, if you want maximum variety… come on into Black Ops."

However, the Treyarch director did express excitement about Battlefield 6 too. "I think if you're a fan of FPS games, you're eating – that's fantastic. Like, that's the key. We're fans of all games, too."

If you're wondering how Call of Duty's Black Ops 7 trailer is going down, the top comment on YouTube by some way is "this actually made me pre-order Battlefield 6."