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

Few video game franchises survived the industry's drive towards annualization. The cost – both creatively and financially – was too great a burden for many publishers to bear. But not Activision, who has been dutifully rewarded for deploying Call of Duty installments every fall for two decades. It's easy to be cynical when it comes to Call of Duty, but the reigning FPS king is among the best-selling games on PlayStation and Xbox every year for a reason. The games are fun, frenetic, and consistent – three exceptionally valuable qualities in a genre increasingly stranded in live-service ambiguity.

What's always kept me invested is the variety. Three lead development houses – Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games – working with a dozen support studios to deliver a different concept each year, with each team given three years to innovate before catching the spotlight. New storylines and settings, new maps and weapons; sub-franchises with their own style and substance. Black Ops 7 is the latest to buck this trend, with Activision once again pursuing back-to-back releases.

I can't say that I'm sold yet on this model. Playing the Battlefield 6 beta made me realize that I've been harboring a bit of a Black Ops fatigue, and I fear that a timeline shift to 2035 can only go so far in multiplayer arenas. But still, from everything I have seen of Black Ops 7 behind-closed-doors so far, it does at least look like co-developers Raven and Treyarch are avoiding the pitfalls which made 2023's Modern Warfare 3 feel like such an abject failure (which we called "one of the most underwhelming entries in Call of Duty's 20 year history" in our Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 review).

Miles Leslie, associate creative director at Treyarch, says that 'unleashing the future of Black Ops' is a tagline that's become something of a "mantra for the team" as development on this incoming installment was pursued in parallel with its predecessor. Leslie says that seeing the success of Black Ops 6 has built momentum within Raven and Treyarch; key as the studios ready to take swings. "Where we're taking this game is so drastically different from a lot of the things that we've done before that it really felt like a step-change to us. The team has a lot of wild ideas, and a lot of them are in this game."

Old dog, new tricks

It's in the campaign where the biggest ideas shine brightest. Black Ops 7 supports both solo and cooperative play, meaning you and three friends can battle your way through this continuation of the events of Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 6 together should you want to. And you almost certainly will, given that Black Ops 7 is introducing global progression between campaign, multiplayer, and zombies.

Where Black Ops 6 turned heads with its sandbox missions and home-base building, you shouldn't expect Black Ops 7 to iterate on these ideas – that's a downside of the parallel development pipeline. Instead, the upcoming FPS is going all-in on big scale bombast. From what I've seen of the campaign in action, it's exceptionally impressive – perhaps the biggest draw of the package.

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Omnimovement has been refined, combining with wide improvements to character animation to make tactical movements smoother and more seamless. Missions seem packed with variety, shifting you from familiar locales like Angola, Nicaragua, Alaska and Tokyo, before thrusting you into the unknown. You may start an objective infiltrating a secure military bunker, but it could end with you trapped in a shared hallucination with your squad – leaping around wide arenas as giant machetes slice through the sky, levels twisting around you.

The campaign will ultimately culminate in something entirely new: 'Endgame', which design director Kevin Drew says will "redefine what campaign can be in Call of Duty." A bold statement, but not without merit. "We love to push what PvE experiences you can have in Call of Duty," Drew continues. "We really wanted to bring replayability to campaign in the way that we have with zombies; a big part of that is because we want to open up progression for the entire game. So what we're really doing here is creating a new path for campaign players to continue to experience our game, and also ideally bring in other players who want to check out this open-world, never-ending version of campaign."

I'm yet to see all that much of Endgame in action, so I'm a little fuzzy on what the execution will ultimately look like – but I'm certainly intrigued by the concept. This 32-player experience does sound like Treyarch's twist on the extraction shooter, as you and your squad wingsuit into different areas of a vast open-world map, and complete objectives to unlock new abilities, improve your loadouts, and build up to combat level 60 before being able to access the endgame area of Endgame. But, Drew warns, "if you wipe you need to restart that journey."

Treyarch is making noise about additions it's bringing to multiplayer. 13 brand new 6v6 multiplayer maps, three returning from Black Ops 2; 30 weapons available at launch, including 16 taking advantage of the 2035 setting; there's the ability to upgrade Scorestreaks and Field Upgrades, and more easily share your favorite loadouts with others online. Without getting my hands on Black Ops 7, I'm not in a position to really know whether this is enough to really make Black Ops 7 feel distinct from its predecessor. So, for now, it's the promise of a raucous co-op campaign adventure that has me looking towards November 14th, 2025.

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