An analyst has shared why Call of Duty's Black Ops 1 and 2 ports are vastly outperforming Halo: Campaign Evolved on PlayStation.

Over on Twitter, Alinea Analytics head of market analysis Rhys Elliott posts a chart of estimates of July's best-selling games on PlayStation consoles. Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports are right at the top, with the latter estimated at 8.2 million sold, making it far and away the highest-selling game of the month, while Black Ops 1 is estimated at only 3 million.

Halo, on the other hand, was estimated to have sold around 351,000 copies in July.

"Beyond the CoD doing ports doing GANGBUSTERS, the thing that stands out is Halo's notably slow start on PlayStation, which ironically stings even more next to the success of two effort-light CoD ports," Elliott explains. Not to mention Halo's stock has somewhat fallen in the last decade and a half, with Elliott adding, "One can’t help wondering what could have been if Halo had kept the trajectory it had around Halo 3 and Reach."

And ultimately, he believes price is the main factor, saying, "A proven, beloved old game, dropped at the right moment and, just as importantly, at the RIGHT PRICE, can out-earn almost anything new and buy a bit of breathing room in the slate."

And while the Call of Duty ports are kind of expensive, they launched with a pretty significant limited-time discount for PS Plus subscribers. Elliott adds, "CoD got it. Halo didn't. Sixty dollars for what’s essentially a graphical touch-up of a 2001 game was always gonna be a rough sell, and players clearly weren’t having it."

Halo: Campaign Evolved was the 4th most popular game on Xbox at launch in the US but only 29th on PS5, analyst says

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's PS4 and PS5 port just got some backend updates as Activision works to "improve match security" amid reports of a hacker on the loose altering players' accounts.

Over the last few days, multiple players reported running into a hacker in their multiplayer lobbies who maxed out their accounts, even setting them to Prestige levels that don't actually exist. Some also reported experiencing game crashes after this, preventing them from playing. Thankfully, it's not taken too long for the devs to get on the case.

"We've released backend updates to improve match security as we review accounts with incorrect Prestige levels," a tweet from the official Call of Duty Updates account today reads.

Players are warned that they might "briefly see an account ban notice when they're removed from a match or session so our systems can correctly apply updated account data," but it doesn't necessarily mean they've actually been banned – it's just a "byproduct of legacy systems used by older titles," it adds.

"If you're able to reconnect after receiving this notice, your account has been processed successfully and no further action is required," it continues. "If you're unable to reconnect, your account has been identified for enforcement based on evidence of intentionally obtaining unauthorized Prestige levels or other violations of our Terms of Service, including account manipulation."

In theory, then, anyone who was randomly targeted by the hacker won't see any negative consequences, but it might be a different story if the account manipulation was intentional.

Based on the responses to the tweet, this process seemingly hasn't been entirely successful – some folks are reporting that no changes have been made to their affected accounts at all. Others are also irritated that they already reset their stats themselves after getting hacked – they're apparently back to square one with no way to get themselves back to their progress before having their accounts manipulated.

Perhaps most concerning is that the post doesn't mention any action being taken against those responsible for the hacks in the first place, raising the question of whether Activision is actually dealing with the root issue, which isn't exactly inspiring confidence in players that the situation is resolved.

Activision seemingly didn't bother fixing a 15-year-old Call of Duty: Black Ops exploit for its new port, modder says, but it's now investigating the leftover PS3 issue.

Treyarch's original Spider-Man game lacked something. It was solidly made, and enjoyable enough to play, but failed to replicate the visceral thrill of hurtling through New York as a web-slinging superhero. It didn't capture the freedom, speed and fluidity of movement that makes Spider-Man so compelling.

Jamie Fristrom, one of Treyarch's first employees and a key member of the development team, had been away on his honeymoon when work started on Spider-Man, which was based around the first instalment of the Sam Raimi trilogy. Fristrom returned to the office to find that his colleagues had embarked down a different path to the one he envisaged.

Webs were essentially cosmetic and players could swing continuously from one to another, regardless of whether they attached to anything or not. They didn't respond to your momentum either, carrying you along at the same steady pace regardless of circumstance.

Fristrom felt that the web-swinging experience wasn't anywhere near dynamic or immersive enough. It also made Spider-Man too easy, depriving the game of the necessary speed and peril. "I was pretty disappointed by that, but I also knew that doing something more 'realistic', with physics and grappling hooks, where you actually attach to stuff, was probably not going to fly," he says. "But, during the development of that game, I did work late to cobble together my own ideas. About six months into production, I'd got something that I liked and I showed it around the team. They thought it was interesting and had potential."

That initial discussion with team members gave Fristrom the confidence to push his idea further. "I talked to the owners of Treyarch – my college buddies – and said, 'Here, look what I did.' They were like, 'Come on, Jamie, be reasonable. You can't change the core game mechanic halfway through!' It also wasn't quite there yet. You'd swing and you'd stick to a wall automatically, because Spider-Man was pretty sticky back then. That wasn't fun."

Treyarch decided to continue with the initial plan and put Fristrom's ideas to one side, at least temporarily. After the game was released in 2002, the development team went to watch Spider-Man in the cinema for the first time, an experience which changed everything. Spellbound by the film's sheer dynamism, they recognised that a more ambitious approach would be needed to ensure the sequel lived up to heightened expectations.

"Maybe we still didn't know what to do next, but we knew exactly where we were heading. Now we could do iteration after iteration. If you feel it strongly enough, getting there is just a matter of work. And we were excited enough that we didn't care how much work it would take," says Tomo Moriwaki, the game's creative director.

Soon after Spider-Man shipped, the next game was underway. Treyarch had two years to deliver Spider-Man 2 and spent the first six months of that in preproduction, refining Fristrom's prototype. "We had this period where we had one team working on gameplay and controls and character and how the camera would work, and then another team working on the tech," he explains.

"In today's world, with the kind of budgets that would be in place for a game like that now, it's unreasonable. Our bosses would have stopped us," says Moriwaki. "But, at the time, there was more distance between publisher and developer, and even the leaders of the development company. We were given a wider berth."

There was no guarantee that all this experimentation would deliver the results they wanted, causing a lot of anxiety. "There were several months of us telling our bosses, like, 'Don't look at it yet! Don't look at it yet!' That moment came where we couldn't hold them off anymore," recalls Fristrom. "That was a great day for us because they were all very impressed. They ran it all the way up the chain to the chief operating officer of Activision to show everybody what we'd done."

The new fluid style of web-swinging, in which Spider-Man would latch onto a building, lamppost, tree or other structure and pivot like a pendulum, was given resounding approval. The more attachment points that were added, the smoother the experience became. You could suddenly cover large distances much more quickly than before, in a way that felt liberating and much truer to the film. "Spider-Man becomes more like a ball that just moves through space and is influenced by the choices we make with the controller," says Moriwaki. "That shifted our thinking towards uninterrupted movement. We were on the hunt for animation transitions that took account of player velocity. If you were swinging at like 70 miles an hour, if you let go, you'd fly at that speed before starting to slow down."

This one fundamental change served as the catalyst for so many others that came together to make Spider-Man 2 far more engaging and memorable than its predecessor. Building a large open-world environment – a faithful recreation of Spider-Man's version of Manhattan that players could freely explore outside of missions – was one of the most significant, drawing inevitable comparisons with Grand Theft Auto.

Programmer Greg Taylor led the city's construction, which was a huge task. "It took longer than we expected. Greg definitely did get pretty stressed out," says Fristrom. "One of the things we had that GTA 3 didn't have was the verticality. On GTA, you're usually down on the road so you can't see that far. If you haven't loaded in distant neighbourhoods because you don't have the memory, or whatever, then it didn't matter that much.

"With Spider-Man, you could go up to the top of the Empire State Building and look around so we needed something. You couldn't just have a fog plane, like so many games did back then. Somebody came up with the idea of loading in these low-detail neighbourhoods that were basically just boxes. Always having those things in memory was pretty key, and then just having the nearby stuff loaded in high detail."

Eric Pavone and other designers populated Manhattan with activity to keep players occupied between missions. You can make deliveries for the pizzeria and take photographs for the Daily Bugle. There are various races to complete, hidden tokens to collect and crimes to stop, each earning you Hero Points that are used to buy upgrades like new attack moves or increased swing speed.

The most common type of challenges in Spider-Man 2, where you have to stop a crime or help a member of the public, were referred to as 'shenanigans' by the Treyarch team. Some had to be initiated by players, while others occurred at random, leaving you to choose whether or not to intervene. Time limits occasionally applied, like when a ship was sinking or a construction worker was about to fall from a ledge.

The lack of variety in shenanigan scenarios is one of the game's biggest drawbacks, forcing players to stop an armed carjacking, rescue a kid's lost balloon or retrieve a stolen purse from a mugger many times over. This was a by-product of the approach the team had taken and the scale of what they were trying to achieve. "Part of the problem is that, in hindsight, we were a prototype game long enough that we had to use whatever the results were," says Moriwaki. "We were just diligently going on, building all kinds of complex infrastructure for a system that we didn't know would work. Because of the way we were doing it, it had to work.

"Some of that stuff, like the armoured car robbery, was really complicated. It was already a huge logical difference to the way we scripted gameplay. It meant we were going to have to be responsible for itemising what we pulled into the scene, and also when we dumped it out. That required a difficult and complex memory management and streaming logic model."

Screen to controller

Matthew B Rhoades adapted the Spider-Man 2 screenplay to create the story. It covers the main plotline, the rise of Doctor Octopus and his fusion experiment that threatens to destroy New York, but other Marvel villains like Rhino, Mysterio and Shocker are drafted in to extend the gameplay. A highly sexualised Black Cat competes with Mary Jane Watson for Spider-Man's attentions as he struggles to reconcile his superhero responsibilities with his normal life as Peter Parker.

"We had to get approval and that wasn't automatic for us. We did a first round of just asking for a lot of different characters and a bunch of them came back 'no'. All the stuff that they said 'yes' to, we basically came up with a rationale for it," says Moriwaki. "We broke up the overall story into half a dozen pieces and then plopped the movie script's key points across that timeframe. We just found a place for it to fit in."

There was lots of extra content that the team wanted to include. Too much, as it turned out. "We were definitely behind schedule near the end. If the movie had come out when they originally said it was going to, I don't know what we would have done," says Jamie. "We got a three-month reprieve. That gave us time to bring more polish. Even with that, we had plans to do this whole sewer system with the Lizard boss, which ended up making it into the third game eventually."

Looking back, Moriwaki believes that the team were simply too close to the project, and too passionate about it, to recognise that their bold plans were getting out of hand. Eventually, Activision had to intervene, requesting that Treyarch narrow the scope of the game considerably to ensure that everything could be finished in time. Some painful sacrifices had to be made. "Spider-Man 2 must have more cut content than any game that had come out until that point," says Moriwaki. "The amount that was cut is staggering. There were some people on the project who had almost their entire work removed from the shipped game and that's terrible."

The control system used in Spider-Man was completely overhauled to make the sequel's gameplay as fluid and fast-paced as Treyarch wanted it to be. Amid all the excitement about what they'd created, there was an underlying concern that players might find the new controls too complex, potentially alienating a significant chunk of their audience.

Feedback from playtests was inconclusive. The team estimated that 10% of players might struggle but worried that the true figure could end up being even higher. "It's probably one of the most difficult core game mechanics that you can dump in somebody's lap and say, 'Here, learn this!'" says Jamie. "I was nervous as we were shipping the final thing. It was like, 'Will people just buy this and not be willing to figure out how to play it?' Most games with 3D swinging do fail, but I have a theory that the lure of Spider-Man means people are willing to get over that learning curve."

The new control system was much less intuitive than the previous one, but with the time and space to practise, which the open-world setting offered in abundance, its intricacies would gradually become second nature to most players, making Spider-Man 2 a far more rewarding experience. Treyarch's leap of faith paid off spectacularly. With the success of the film, which was the third-highest grossing of 2004, Spider-Man 2 was always destined to sell in huge numbers. Perhaps more significant was the overwhelmingly positive reception from players and critics, who praised the game for its vast scale, daring style and sheer fun factor. Sprinting, swinging, climbing and leaping around Manhattan was an absolute joy.

The developers reflect fondly on the process that led them there too. "I had an extremely good time and a ton of those people are still basically like family to me," says Tomo. "What we were able to discover, and accomplish, together was super-satisfying. It was a lot of work and, I think in hindsight, it was maybe at a somewhat unreasonable pace, but even that over-commitment just felt like mad science and experimentation.

"We developed a control scheme and a locomotion experience that could sustain an almost unlimited amount of exploration. We had no precedent for what we did and the way we did it gives me this clear example of why we take chances."

"In a lot of ways, I still feel like it was the peak of my career. Even over 20 years later, that's the coolest thing I've ever done, other than having kids!" laughs Jamie. "There's just something about Spider-Man 2 that's special and enduring.

"The fact that Spider-Man games keep coming out, and they keep paying homage to that swinging mechanic we developed, really makes me happy and proud still to this day. We changed gaming history in our own tiny way, right?"

Take a look at the best Spider-Man games for more web-head adventures!

They don't make 'em like they used to, but this week, Season 5 of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will introduce an updated matchmaking system that's more in line with how they used to make 'em.

In a new tweet, the official Call of Duty Twitter account reflects, "Over the past year, we've continued to learn a lot about Multiplayer matchmaking through player data and community feedback."

This comes on the heels of the recent PS4 and PS5 release of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2, which has finally given the latest PlayStation consoles official versions of the first two games in this sub-series. Their release also stoked discussion of how Black Ops used to feel (spoilers: sometimes full of cheaters).

"We're also excited to see all the recent love for Black Ops and Black Ops II, which reinforced that there are many elements of those experiences that players appreciate," Activision agrees. "Starting this week with Season 05, we're updating Black Ops Classic, Quick Play, and Party Games in Black Ops 7 with a new matchmaking system inspired by those classic games."

With this change, the exact vibe of which will warrant some hands-on testing in the days ahead, Black Ops 7 will "continue to offer" modern Open playlists, and Activision says "we'll also include Open playlist options in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta." But if you're an older Call of Duty fan who maintains that the newer games have lost a little something, you may be in better company than you realized.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 expands Ricochet anti-cheat to combat exploits in Ranked after banning over 263,000 cheaters already this year.

The war against cheaters continues, with Activision bringing in the latest round of protections for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. The publisher is utilizing the Ricochet software to help handle ne'er-do-wells in the FPS, in order to better single out the more discreet exploits players are taking advantage of.

Ricochet is already part of the framework for the latest Call of Duty, and Warzone 2, but now Activision's revealed the partnership is being extended. "Through June, Ricochet Anti-Cheat banned more than 293,000 accounts year-to-date while making it harder for cheaters to create new ones," a social media statement reads. "In Season 5, we're further expanding our hardware ban capabilities."

This was prompted by a rash of poor behavior in Ranked, where the higher-skilled players frequent. Cheaters are getting smarter and more intricate, only using tools for specific instances, making it harder to catch them in the act.

Cases are getting so minute, in fact, that Activision says only a small portion of the accounts that get spotted and banned stem from video evidence captured by others. What you can see as another competitor in the same match is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the data the devs are gathering.

"Public clips can help flag cases that deserve a closer look, but they account for about 0.11% of all enforcement actions," the post reads. "The remaining 99.89% are driven by detection data, investigations, in-game player reports, and internal monitoring. In other words, the work is happening well beyond what players can see publicly."

Ricochet, then, "combines client protections, server-side analysis, and dedicated investigation tools" for a robust set of defences against malicious carry on. A kernel-level driver can spot third-party software that shouldn't be part of the in-game experience, layering the hurdles for cheaters.

The message ends by pointing that while "bans matter," you may not see the banhammer come down straight away. Timing is taken into consideration, to help avoid exploiters adapting too quickly to the latest defences.

This is a constant bugbear, but with any luck, Black Ops 7 and Warzone 2 will see a decrease in such activity. At least, for now.

Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 ports were both in the top 10 US PlayStation games last week despite cheating and DLC mess

Despite being a bit of a terrible deal, the PS4 and PS5 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 both charted among the most played games on PlayStation in the US last week.

Earlier this month, Activision released the rumored Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 and 2 ports on PS4 and PS5. And despite being the highlight of the franchise for many people, these ports haven't exactly gone down well with fans.

First off, unless you have PlayStation Plus to take advantage of a limited-time discount, both games are $40 each, and $30 on top of that for the DLC map packs, which fragments the player base between those who do and don't have DLC… the already fragmented player base, as there's no crossplay between PS4 and PS5.

And on top of that, the game swiftly became rife with cheaters – presumably due to the fact that 15-year-old exploits haven't been fixed – making the online just a bit of a miserable experience.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker - US Top 10 Titles by Total Weekly Active Users (Not Concurrent) - W/E Jul 11, 2026- Call of Duty: Black Ops I & II debut in top 10 on PlayStation- Palworld jumps from 57th on Steam a week ago to 2nd with v1.0 official launch

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T14:54:39.588Z

And yet, the nostalgia for these two games has proven potent, as thanks to Circana's Mat Piscatella, we know that both games debuted in the top 10 most played games on PlayStation in the US. Black Ops came in at ninth place, with only Madden NFL 26 behind it in the top 10, while Minecraft and Marvel Rivals came in eighth and seventh before Black Ops 2 appeared at number six. However, the regular old Call of Duty (the app that encompasses the likes of Warzone) came in fourth, giving Activision's shooter three spots in the top 10.

Predictably, the top 10 outside of these two games is filled with titles that were also in last week's ranking, with Fortnite, NBA 2K26, and Roblox holding the same top three spots. As for last week's big release, Assassin's Creed Black Flag: Resynced, the chart notes that it launched within the top 30 on PlayStation. So nostalgia is potent, but maybe for some things more than others.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

Despite having 15 years between them, Call of Duty: Black Ops' PS4 and PS5 port is seemingly suffering from the same exploits that its PS3 version has also been a victim of.

Activision released both Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 for the PS4 and PS5 last week in the form of straightforward ports, not remasters – both games are also on Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility. While making two fan-favorite games available to more people should've been a slam dunk win for Activision, XP exploits quickly made multiplayer lobbies nearly unplayable for large waves of Black Ops 1's online population.

As spotted by IGN, YouTuber Tdawgsmitty recently chatted with a modder who explained that the problem might actually be a leftover exploit from the original game's PS3 and Xbox 360 days. Right now, there aren't any aimbots and such flooding the game, but people are modding save files to farm more XP than is usually possible by spamming themselves with grenades, say, which is ruining competitive games for regular players.

"Essentially, what you're doing is that it's like PS3 where you copy [a save file] to your USB, and there's a website that lets you unencrypt it," the modder says. "The site lets you use a jailbroken PS4/PS5, and it will decrypt it for you. The save data is the exact same as PS3. What sucks about this port is that Iron Galaxy [and] Activision didn't bother changing the encryption on the files, which is the whole reason why this is available right now. That's the only reason why."

Activision disabled "select playlists" a few days ago while it investigates reported issues. It then updated some playlists with "a server-wide fix," though the modder suggests other game modes are still exploitable.

For now, reminisce with the best Call of Duty games of all time.

Things aren't going well for the new ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops and its follow-up on PlayStation 4 and 5. Mere days after launch, players found the lobbies to be absolutely riddled with cheaters, to the point that the FPS is basically unplayable, prompting Activision to take drastic action.

These versions of Black Ops 1 and 2 launched on July 9, and it wasn't long before reports emerged of fans having a frustrating time due to hacks and exploits. Not just your routine exploits either, custom lobbies have made it so that you can jump to the top level by grenading yourself right as a match starts.

This is leading to entire teams blowing themselves up, giving the opposition the win by default. What fun, eh? Who needs bullets and guns and actually playing the game properly? Seeing this rather large wildfire of issues, Activision quickly shut everything down by flat-out disabling certain playlists for the time being.

The publisher announced this on the Call of Duty Updates Twitter account on July 13. Since then, the "first phase" of hotfixes have been rolled out. Playlists have gotten a server-side fix, and anyone lumbered with negative XP has now been reset to level 20 for regular progression.

That second one is due to a bizarre hack on the first Black Ops. Killing someone in a round of Domination where a player is already at the top level will either catapult you to level 50, or take away the same amount of experience from overall score, putting you in minus figures and locking you out of playing altogether because the game reads you as less than level 1.

I'm not a gambling man anyway, but I definitely wouldn't be taking that risk. Activision had made it clear the multiplayer infrastructure is built on new servers, to prevent age old glitches and issues re-emerging. Sadly, hackers have only gotten worse in the 16 years since the first Black Ops, and the fact these re-releases are coming at a $40 premium just makes this all the more irritating.

"Call of Duty is bigger than the Marvel Cinematic Universe": New Xbox CEO brags as more of its games turn to film and TV

The first all-new Spyro game in 18 years, Spyro: A Realm Beyond, is finally set to launch early next year, but the devs at Toys for Bob have had to be careful not to get too carried away with their "cool ideas" that would see the platformer run out of budget and time.

Associate creative director Louis "Lou" Studdert and studio head Paul Yan recently appeared on an episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, where they were asked if there were any moments during development when they realised they were going too far.

The answer is yes, though Studdert explains that "every game is like that" since there's so much "eyeballing" and "napkin math" involved as the team works out what elements might need cutting back, and what they might want more of.

"There are areas where you tighten the belt, and there's areas where you expand," he continues. "Just part of the game development process."

Yan adds to this, noting that "scope creep is a real thing." There's a simple reason for this: "Every time you're in a conversation with creative folks, it's always like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if this happened?'"

And yes, Yan says, "they absolutely are cool ideas, but if you commit to every single one of those, you know, without some discipline, then your game blows out of budget and blows out of time."

Thankfully, this isn't Toys for Bob's first rodeo. The studio has "high tenure folks who have worked together and can complete each other's sentences," and are also so "highly senior" that they know the drill when it comes to shipping games and understanding "'what is the scope within our team,'" Yan says.

In summary, he concludes, "We know ourselves, and we know when things are a little bit beyond our reach, or too much, and then we'll pull it back down to be what's appropriate for us developing it and also for the experience."

One thing the devs haven't held back on, however, is A Realm Beyond's flight system. In the same podcast, the devs explain that they wanted flying to be a very "active" thing, and crucially, not like a "flight simulator" where you can leave Spyro on "autopilot." So, expect you can find plenty of "decision-making" there.

Spyro: A Realm Beyond dev says the "loud and consistent" fans who bought 11 million copies of the Reignited trilogy helped manifest the series' first new game in years.

The original Call of Duty: Black Ops and Black Ops 2 are now available natively on PS5 (and PS4) thanks to shadow-dropped new ports, and the prices haven't aged a day.

Call of Duty: Black Ops is $39.99 at base or $19.99 with PlayStation Plus through August 6. Its season pass comes with the First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation, and Rezurrection content packs, and is $29.99 or $9.89 with PlayStation Plus, also through August 6.

The same prices and limited-time PlayStation Plus promos apply to Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and its season pass, which includes four DLCs – Revolution, Uprising, Vengeance, and Apocalypse – along with the Nuketown Zombies map and an "Exclusive Calling Card - 'The Deuce.'"

Cross-platform multiplayer is notably not supported by these versions, which is one of several complaints circulating among Call of Duty fans, along with player base fragmentation resulting from the expansion packs being sold separately. Modern Warzone notes that Wager Matches and Theatre mode are also missing from the PlayStation ports.

All in all, post-discount, you could be spending as much as $140 to get everything in both games. On the one hand, this comes as no surprise; this is exactly how much these games and content packs cost on Steam, for comparison. The PS Plus deals do take the edge off, if only for now, and you will need a PS Plus sub to play online to begin with. It does feel kind of weird to pay this price for the season passes of 16- and 14-year-old games, I'll agree. After all, those seasons have long passed.

Here are the 10 best Call of Duty games of all-time.

It's been nearly seven years now since Activision and Toys for Bob released Spyro: Reignited Trilogy – and there's a reason the well-received three-in-one remake feels so faithful to its old counterparts from the late 90s and early 2000s.

In case you've never played the remade trilogy, it's pretty solid – in fact, it plays exactly as I remember the original few games playing, striking the perfect balance between nostalgia and quality of life (I'm looking at you, OG PlayStation controls).

Toys for Bob studio head Paul Yan explains how and why the developers pulled this off in a new discussion with Kinda Funny on YouTube – and insightful is an understatement here.

According to the lead, the team first tried to find source code in-house so it could "reconstruct it" for the Reignited Trilogy.

So, instead, "one of our engineers took an open- source emulator and then modified that so that we looked at the original game and actually peered into its data, extracted a lot of the models… We extracted the levels. We measured all the metrics. We found the exact placement for every gem."

That's not all, though. "We measured the timing, the speed, and the paths of certain enemies." In other words, they delved deep into the modified emulator. "It gave us a lot of metrics that gave us the authenticity on that side of it," as Yan says.

Obviously, they did change some things so that Spyro: Reignited Trilogy wouldn't feel too "old," so to speak – the controls, as I joked earlier, are one of the bigger things.

And, honestly, I'm grateful that they did. As associate creative director Lou Studdert chimes in, after all, players tend to have "rose-tinted glasses" on when approaching retro games like Spyro.

You imagine them looking and playing a whole lot differently than they actually did – but the devs took that into account with Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, and it's better for it. I do wonder, though… how will Spyro: A Realm Beyond feel, in contrast?

We have some very exciting features – like free flight and such – to look forward to, but also the same colorful visuals that made the original games so comforting. Personally, I can't wait to give it a go… a new entry has been a long time coming.

"Going independent meant taking a massive, massive risk": How Toys for Bob split off from Activision and Xbox to help guide Spyro to A Realm Beyond

Everyone who has played Destiny will tell you a story about it. They'll probably have a few, actually, but ask them to pick their most memorable and it will likely be the tale of how they got their first Gjallarhorn, the all-conquering rocket launcher that made mincemeat of just about everything during Destiny's first year. We doubt many can beat the story of the member of our raid team who got theirs by stopping on the approach to a loot chest deep in the Vault Of Glass, and firing their entire supply of rockets at it. Stepping up to open it, out popped Gjallarhorn. For weeks afterwards, the other five raiders would unleash rocket after rocket at the luckily impervious chest in the hope of seeing it spit out Destiny's most prized reward.

Such were the lengths we went to, in those early days, to tip the odds in our favour. Destiny launched in September 2014, and within days it had become starkly apparent that this was not the game we had dreamed of, or the one Bungie had promised it would be. Its story, if you could call it that, was over in a flash. Our character hit the level cap of 20 within days, and it seemed there was nothing left to do. A pop-up window that appeared after we hit level 20 hinted at a new purpose – the pursuit of Light, the true measure of a Destiny Guardian's power – but the only way to raise it was to play, again and again, levels and missions that we felt we had already picked clean.

In the absence of anything new to do, Bungie gave us punishing difficulty and a miserly random loot system. The weekly Nightfall Strike, for instance – a ramped-up version of an existing mission with tougher enemies and a selection of cruel gameplay modifiers – offered up one of the best loot tables in the game, with a reasonable chance of dropping legendary and exotic gear upon completion. Yet enemies would frequently appear at a level or two higher than you could ever reach, and if all three team members died, they'd be kicked to orbit, and would have to start over from scratch.

Faced with those odds, it's little surprise that players did what they could to cheat the system. One Nightfall boss could be killed by hiding beneath a raised platform, shooting through a small gap that enemy ordnance couldn't fit through, using Ice Breaker, a sniper rifle whose ammo replenished automatically over time. It worked, but playing Destiny this way was slow, boring, and not in the spirit of the game, so Bungie patched it. It did likewise for the infamous loot cave, a small opening in a rockface in Old Russia's Skywatch zone from which enemies constantly spawned, and into which players would empty clip after clip, standing stock still until their supplies ran dry.

Destiny was the first game in Bungie's 10-year deal with Activision, but the game would likely have died, and the contract been ripped up, within weeks of launch were it not for the Vault Of Glass. VOG, to use the Destiny community's affectionate shorthand for the game's first raid, launched a week after the base game – just long enough for the committed player to reach the recommended level 26. Even now, four expansions and three more raids later, VOG is held up as the best Destiny – and co-op console gaming in general – has to offer.

Vault of Glass

It was clear from the start that this was different to everything else in Destiny, whose missions until now had been linear excursions between objective markers, with variously sized gunfights building to a battle against a bullet-sponge boss. Yet VOG opened by asking a six-strong team to split up and hold three capture points from incessantly spawning enemies. Inside there were boss fights, yes, but they were no mere shootouts. Each had a set of exacting mechanics to learn, to devise a solution to, and to conquer.

In between there was light relief – a frequently hilarious platforming puzzle with disappearing scenery, which even now is all too easy to mess up – and a marvellously fraught stealth maze whose patrolling Gorgon enemies would instakill anyone they laid eyes on. VOG was difficult, yes: the first team in the world to clear it took over 10 hours. But it was the most rewarding activity Destiny had to offer, both figuratively – the sense of satisfaction after you and five friends finally clear a difficult section is part of what makes Destiny so special – and literally, as some of the best loot in the game flooded into your inventory after each boss was vanquished.

And what loot it was. The armour on offer was, at the time, the only route to the true level cap of 30. And the guns were, aside from the more widely available Gjallarhorn, the best available. There's never been a hand cannon like Fatebringer: it had the Firefly perk, which caused enemies killed by headshots to explode, dealing heavy damage to those around it, and Outlaw, which greatly increased reload speed after a precision kill. It was more than a gun: it was a game in itself, training you to pick your shots, and rewarding you for doing so by killing four other enemies in the vicinity, then refilling your clip in a split second. It's simply one of those guns – Doom 2's super shotgun, Titanfall's smart pistol, and so on – that will be talked about for years.

Yet for all that VOG was a masterclass in design, and the gear that dropped from it a delight, it also exposed two of Destiny's greatest problems. The first is that a handful of guns were overpowered, to the extent that anything else was considered a waste. When the hard-mode version of Crota's End, the second Destiny raid, launched, it was widely accepted that the final boss fight was as good as impossible without a full team of Gjallarhorn owners. Matchmaking websites, created to help players assemble raid teams – there was no such facility in the game itself – hosted listings with strict team requirements, almost all of which insisted on applicants being max-level and with Gjallarhorn in their inventory.

The second problem was, inevitably, RNG. Since VOG was, for a spell, the gatekeeper to the level cap, you were reliant on the game granting you a full set of raid armour. Many were left looking for just one piece (for most, weirdly, it was a pair of boots). The hunt spawned a meme, 'Forever 29' – one drop short of the maximum level of 30. A wounded Bungie has been working to make amends ever since.

Indeed, the studio has worked tirelessly on these two distinct problems, struggling to balance a set of weapons that must fulfil two very different needs – in PVE, being overpowered is fun, but in PVP, it's ruinous – while reducing Destiny's reliance on a random-number generator. It's been largely successful: in its final form, Destiny is the fairest it's ever been. Guns are finely balanced. Loot still drops randomly, but the most powerful gear is available through fixed, clearly explained (though typically long-winded) means. Everyone can reach the level cap by simply playing what is now a very generous, accommodating game. There's little to complain about in Destiny today. But it's missing something, too.

Randomness is a powerful thing. And for the first 12 months Destiny was defined by RNG – powered by it, propped up by it, the reason we loved it and hated it and kept on playing it anyway, going into work the next day bleary-eyed, disappointed and itching to get back to it. The weeks or months of waiting for your raid boots, or Gjallarhorn, made the eventual payoff all the sweeter.

Better Together

The pain may have stopped, but we didn't. Once you'd got all the gear you really needed you carried on anyway, playing and replaying the same old missions. Routes and enemy patterns had long been committed to memory, your god-tier weapons making mincemeat of them all. Luke Smith – the Bungie staffer who designed VOG, Destiny's first and best raid, directed The Taken King, its best expansion, and went on to lead development of Destiny 2 – once described Destiny as "the bar I can go to in my pyjamas", and it remains the most succinct explanation of the game's appeal.

A few sphincter-clenching raid sections aside, it's the most laid-back game about shooting alien monsters you could possibly imagine. The advantage to having so little content was that, if you played it enough times, you could do it without thinking about it. It's a highly social game, with a largely friendly community – the kind that forms when players come together to see off some of the toughest challenges in video games, then spend a couple of hours popping Cabal heads, farming upgrade materials and talking about their days to wind down.

None of this would have happened had Destiny not been one of the best FPS games around. Not even the magic of VOG would've saved Destiny had there not, beneath the miserly loot system, the wet fart of a story and the content drought, been a rock-solid FPS. We expected great gunplay from the maker of Halo, but Destiny's true mechanical magic lies in the way it borrows from the best MMOs – with its cooldowns and super moves, its deeply customisable subclasses – and uses them to create something that subverts, and elevates, our expectations of the FPS.

That foundation carried the game through three years of peaks and troughs. And as we finally close the book on Destiny, the lingering impression is not one of a shooter, or even an RPG – but a game that somehow managed to be the best when it was, by any objective standard, its absolute worst.

This article was first published in 2017, in issue 308 of Edge Magazine. If you're interested in receiving more stories just like this one, subscribe to Edge Magazine.

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 Modern Warfare 4 beta in August. We now know that early access period will run from the end of August to the beginning of September, meaning you can get a considerably early look ahead of 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.

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"