Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is barely 12 months after Black Ops 6, defying the custom of taking a hiatus between numbered sequels. You may think that this meant only minor changes to what was one of the series’ high points last year. However, the developers at Raven and Treyarch have created one of the most unusual CoD campaigns to date since they clearly don’t view it that way. It doesn’t even seem like a CoD single-player game in many respects. It’s more akin to a multiplayer experiment crammed into a campaign shell, and it works best when you’re with squadmates. At times, it reminds me of Zombies or the now-defunct DMZ.
To Black Ops 7’s credit, I recently criticized Battlefield 6‘s single-player for being cautious and not taking any chances. The issue, though, is that not many of its major swings were successful, making it one of Call of Duty’s most captivating yet unsuccessful campaigns. Its diverse series of missions darts between planets beyond our technical reach and deep within our most terrifying imaginations, walking the tightrope between traditional military shooter and schlocky sci-fi silliness.
Sharp gunplay and a plethora of gadgets and skills that make navigating those environments immensely enjoyable complement that spectacle. However, it all comes together in a brand-new endgame section that attempts to become something unique by combining elements of CoD’s previous open-world achievements and shortcomings. In actuality, the post-credits material is a monotonous shooting gallery that doesn’t really heighten the anticipation.
One key design decision accounts for a large portion of Black Ops 7’s intrigue: a Call of Duty campaign is completely playable in four-player cooperative mode for the first time in many years, and it truly does feel like it was the preferred mode of play. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. Fighting large bosses who have several weak places to shoot at once or tactically sneaking past an enemy region are both enjoyable activities when done with company.
However, it also negatively impacts the experience when you’re alone. For example, you won’t have AI companions to help you if your friends aren’t online, you’ll get kicked for being idle for too long, and because it’s online-only, you won’t even be allowed to pause. When zipping around alone, it can be a little lonely because its vast parts and endgame section seem to be designed for a communal experience as well. In some ways, it seems like Activision is now acknowledging that the majority of players like playing its iconic shooter in multiplayer mode rather than the single-player story modes on which the series was built.
Having completed several missions in both cooperative and single-player modes, I can attest to the fact that playing alone is somewhat tiresome because you have to repeat various goals, such as placing C4 on a building four times instead of splitting them up as planned. This time, there are no options for difficulty, so theoretically, the threat should increase based on the number of people in your squad. However, in my experience, the quantity of enemies in a level doesn’t change, thus even in the first stages, I feel overpowered by adversaries. Playing with a full team, on the other hand, makes these engagements easier because there aren’t always enough targets.
In actuality, the number of enemies varies during the entire campaign; at times, you may be confronted by dozens of ferocious rushers, while at other times, you may find a few soldiers strolling through a door when you anticipate an assault. Admittedly, striking the correct balance is challenging, but it hasn’t been done here.
It truly appears to have been designed for four-player cooperative gaming.
In terms of the campaign’s structure, Black Ops 7’s narrative moves quickly; it only took me roughly five hours to reach the endgame. It’s 11 missions transported me to far-off places, different eras, and terrifying worlds full of unearthly pleasures and tragedies. In 2035, there are fresh dangers that could cause the world to collapse once more. The playable unit, Spectre One, is propelled into action by the reappearance of Black Ops 2 villain Raul Menendez, and soon they are up against the villainous tech company The Guild.
The Guild, led by Kiernan Shipka’s Emma Kagan, who is exchanging crazy Men for crazy mechs here, uses a fear poison to weaponize a series of tasks that hurl you in and out of reality. As our characters’ long-buried memories are unearthed and transformed into terrifying mazes, a blend of stereotypical evil sci-fi tech corp and Batman Arkham scarecrow-like pranks takes each level to intriguing visual locations.
In terms of art design, it results in a more varied campaign, with an astounding amount of locales and monsters that are thematically filled to be shot down. Although corridor shooting predominates in the most of these excursions, I do wish there was a little more mission diversity in terms of real level and objective design. Nothing compares to the conceptual intrigue of last year’s Emergence, with its branching objectives and amusing adversary design, or the spy-like cool of sneaking into a high-roll casino or embassy fundraiser.
Black Ops 7 is a lot noisier proposition than last year’s Black Ops 6, which focused more on realistic espionage and deception. Rather than courting the security guard in front of a complex to gain entrance, Black Ops 7 chooses to smash its lobby. Because of this, there are plenty of significant occasions that support the title “blockbuster.” Taking control of an opulent luxury yacht and crashing into a building’s side is an unforgettable experience, as is dodging enormous falling machetes like you’ve stumbled into a Looney Tunes cartoon. These kinds of moments fit the Call of Duty pattern perfectly and feel like they were taken straight out of Christopher Nolan’s back pocket.
And that’s only the beginning of one of the most notable missions, which takes place in Tokyo and requires you to jump across roofs and dive into its subway systems. Levels like these have a lot of forward motion, and I really enjoy them. The more open-zone sections of the fictional French city-state of Avalon—itself a massive battle royale-sized hub—struggle to have the same thrilling energy, so I wish more of the campaign were like this Japanese chapter. These are essentially endgame tutorials that require you to move across larger rural areas of the map in order to pursue the next group of adversaries to eliminate.
It doesn’t feel at all like a “Call of Duty” campaign most of the time.
In reality, it doesn’t feel at all like a “Call of Duty” campaign most of the time. Yes, it has the militaristic characteristics, but it also borrows heavily from its own in-house zombie modes and horde shooters such as Left 4 Dead. It results in an inconsistent collection of missions, some of which truly don’t appeal to me while others succeed in capturing part of the CoD cinematic heritage. They are uncommon, though, and each one is accompanied by an oddly boring scene, like the one where you are instructed to play Frogger on a twisted, upside-down LA roadway.
As one might anticipate, the gunplay is quick and enjoyable, with SMGs joyfully tearing through armored opponents and sniper rifles truly shining in some of the open regions of the game. Every weapon is really responsive when the trigger is pulled and has a nice weight to it. As you tear through enemy healthbars and armor portions in Call of Duty, you shouldn’t be surprised by how wonderful the game’s weaponry feel—they’ve been doing this for a while. However, these additional layers to their vitality do give gunfights a slightly longer cadence, requiring a few more trigger bursts to eliminate each.
Admittedly, I was first dubious about the near-future premise and Call of Duty’s return to experimenting with near-future technology in terms of movement, but overall, the experiment is rather successful. Although wall leaping can be a bit awkward, the kinetic super jump and my favorite of the group, the grapple hook, are great tools for speedy flanking. Each level’s architecture is revealed in intriguing ways when you swing up to roofs to gain a better view and then swoop down on a wingsuit to go back up close. When it comes to first-person shooter mobility, it might never quite match the gold standard of Titanfall 2, but there are moments of it here, which is always appreciated.
Its approach to boss design, which is somewhat novel for Call of Duty but by no means revolutionary when it comes to first-person shooter missions, reflects this desire to explore. Even though they all essentially boil down to draining a large health bar while dodging missiles, I admire the efforts made to give each one a unique gimmick. Even though they aren’t particularly complicated, hitting the glowing weak points of a massive, bile-spewing plant in a cave of nightmares is undoubtedly better than simply firing bullets at a Juggernaut for the hundredth time. This is especially true when multiple targets are presented simultaneously, which truly makes the cooperative aspect of the campaign feel worthwhile.
Verdict
The campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is extremely ambitious. Even while not every roll of the dice is profitable, there is enough fun to be had in all 11 missions to avoid feeling like a dud—at least when played in the preferred cooperative mode. Beyond that, its endgame seems a little repetitious and supplemental to the narrative Black Ops 7 is attempting to tell, but it has the germ of a nice idea that might be developed with future efforts. Even though it doesn’t always work flawlessly, this game has a respectable variety of styles on display because to its enjoyable mobility capabilities and excellent gunplay.The campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is extremely ambitious.
Even while not every roll of the dice is profitable, there is enough fun to be had in all 11 missions to avoid feeling like a dud—at least when played in the preferred cooperative mode. Beyond that, its endgame seems a little repetitious and supplemental to the narrative Black Ops 7 is attempting to tell, but it has the germ of a nice idea that might be developed with future efforts. Even though it doesn’t always work flawlessly, this game has a respectable variety of styles on display because to its enjoyable mobility capabilities and excellent gunplay.
