{"id":3558,"date":"2025-11-25T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T14:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/?p=3558"},"modified":"2025-11-24T21:31:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T02:31:55","slug":"call-of-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/call-of-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Ops 7: What the Hell Are We Doing Anymore?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
By Draven Copeland, Editor-in-Chief<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"BlackOps7\"
Cover art for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 | Activision <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let me preface this review by saying I have been a fan of the Call of Duty<\/em> franchise for most of my lifetime. Since I was about eight years old, I\u2019ve been enthralled by the fast-paced gunplay, the variety of game modes, and the generally well-written (or, at least, well-animated) story modes that have been offered over the years in the subseries and stand-alone titles that make up the now 22 games in the overall franchise. I currently own them all; as the franchise drops a new title every year, it\u2019s not a question of \u201cif\u201d I will buy the new Call of Duty<\/em>, but \u201cwhen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had planned to write a review for the newest entry in the series, Black Ops 7<\/em>, since before I pre-ordered it, and had expected that I\u2019d be able to finally publicize my usual talking points on why the game \u201cisn\u2019t that bad\u201d and might be \u201cworth a try, especially if you\u2019ve missed a couple Call of Duty <\/em>games.\u201d Upon playing all three modes the game has to offer, I realized I really have nothing this year; this may be the worst entry in the series to date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Campaign Is Just as Bad as You\u2019ve Heard<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>Set in the year 2035, the campaign (or story mode) of Black Ops 7<\/em> takes place between the events of Black Ops II <\/em>and Black Ops 4<\/em> \u2013 if you\u2019re confused, don\u2019t worry, it would actually be more confusing for me to explain further. Suffice it to say, this is the first direct sequel we\u2019ve gotten to Black Ops II<\/em> since its release, as all other subsequent games in the Black Ops <\/em>subseries have been set either way after or way before and have never directly referenced its events beyond a name-drop or two. And that\u2019s about all the good I have to say about the campaign for Black Ops 7.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first major gripe I have with the campaign mode came to me even before I started playing it: it\u2019s made to be a co-op experience and doesn\u2019t hide that fact in the slightest. As someone who primarily enjoys playing alone (especially in story mode), this was an immediate red flag, as the campaign\u2019s menu looks exactly<\/em> like the multiplayer and zombie modes\u2019 menus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As soon as the first cutscene ends, playing the campaign solo just feels wrong. There are no difficulty options, so you\u2019re stuck playing at the same difficulty level as those playing with one to three other teammates, meaning that everyone you fight has an unreasonably large healthbar. By the time you reach the end of the game and enemies have grown stronger\/have more armor, you\u2019re genuinely spending entire magazines of your weapon on one or two people, making the experience tedious and way more difficult than it should be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The plotline the campaign levels follow doesn\u2019t help either; it\u2019s more confusing than it is interesting, relies on characters and settings from Black Ops II<\/em> and Black Ops 6<\/em> for no substantial reason, and has boss fights that are, putting it lightly, fucking insane (and not in the good way). The entire story revolves around four American operatives who are gassed with nano-technological fear toxin that infects their futuristic contact-lens screens, so the team must fight not only the real-world threats of an ambiguous human\/robot military force but also their fear-induced visions of demons, zombies, ghosts, etc. It\u2019s an interesting idea on paper, and I was excited to see how the developers would incorporate the returning fan-favorite villain from Black Ops II<\/em>, Raul Menendez \u2013 it turns out he wasn\u2019t really incorporated at all, as he is revealed at the end of the first mission to truly be dead after the events of the last game and appears only as a teleporting hallucinatory boss that can call giant machetes down from heaven for some reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of minute-to-minute gameplay, it\u2019s just not really very fun and constantly breaks immersion. Playing solo, the other three characters on the team aren\u2019t filled in with non-player characters (NPCs), so every objective and battle in the game just feels weird to be achieving\/fighting alone. What makes this even stranger is the fact that the other characters are still speaking to the player over comms, reacting to the things going on around them even though, once again, they aren\u2019t actually there. Then, when a cutscene plays, they are<\/em> there, before they disappear again as soon as the gameplay starts back up. This could\u2019ve been played into with the trippy\/hallucinatory aesthetic of the game, as you could be left wondering if your team is actually real or just in your head\u2026 but that\u2019s not explored at all, making every voice line and cutscene break the immersion entirely every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could go into the open-world missions that litter the game and the boss fights that have genuinely been compared to those from LEGO Marvel Superheroes<\/em>, but I won\u2019t bore you with any more details; just don\u2019t play the story mode unless you have a group of friends to play with\u2026 even then, just play a different game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Multiplayer Is The Same Shit Over Again<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"BO7Omnimovement\"
Players run alongside the new D.A.W.G. scorestreak. | Call of Duty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>I don\u2019t really have as much to say as I\u2019d hoped in regards to the multiplayer, mainly because it is, with the exception of the new wall-jump mechanic, the exact same thing as last year\u2019s Black Ops 6<\/em>. Sure, the movement speed is a little slower, the lethal equipment types such as grenades are stronger, and the time-to-kill (TTK) is faster, but those are such minimal changes to the actual feel of the game that I would bet any casual player wouldn\u2019t really even notice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As far as the wall-jump mechanic goes, it\u2019s fun for about the first three times and, after that, I only use it when I\u2019m required to by the map I\u2019m playing on. For example, most of the new multiplayer maps in the game have sections where there\u2019s a gap in the floor or a ledge high up that are only navigable with a wall-jump. As the game stands now, before any seasonal content has dropped, about half of the maps available are remastered classics from Black Ops II<\/em> that were not built for wall-jumping, so I have actually forgotten it\u2019s a thing for hours at a time while playing because there\u2019s little to no use for it most of the time. That\u2019s how cool the new movement is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earned scorestreaks (specialty weapons that are earned by racking up multiple kills without dying) range from the tried-and-true classics like the UAV, Hellstorm missile, and Watchdog helicopter, to some of the most incredibly frustrating new entries that have almost made me rage-quit lobbies. I\u2019m talking, of course, about the Skewer and Gravemaker scorestreaks, both of which cause instant death and are nearly impossible to avoid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When earned, the Skewer drops a slab of metal from the stratosphere onto a random player of the other team, while the Gravemaker is a short-use sniper rifle that highlights enemy players through walls and allows the player to shoot and kill them regardless of what is in the way in one shot from any place on the map. Neither of these are any fun at all on the receiving end and are actually triggering to encounter in the game; there\u2019s not really anything you can do about them, as the Skewer is only avoided if you\u2019re under a roof and the Gravemaker lasts until the player who earned it runs out of ammo or is killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I won\u2019t harp on it too much, but there\u2019s also a blatant use of AI-generated images being used as Calling Cards and Emblems (customizable tags associated with your gamertag that appear whenever you kill another player, win Play of the Game, etc.), and it\u2019s pretty fucking disgusting. As Activision is now a multi-billion dollar company, especially so after its purchase by Microsoft, they\u2019re just shitting on the work of artists and developers by doing this, all for the designs to look bad<\/em>. There have been multiple times that I\u2019ve earned a new Calling Card through gameplay and gotten excited, only to look at it in the lobby menu and grow disappointed with the poorly generated image, minimizing any incentive for me to play the game to earn any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of writing, Call of Duty<\/em>\u2019s Fortnite-<\/em>inspired free-to-play battle royale mode, Warzone<\/em>, has not been updated with new content specifically for Black Ops 7<\/em>, otherwise I\u2019d dive into that too. It\u2019s fortunate for me, as I\u2019ve never liked a single rendition of that mode anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Zombies Mode Would Be the Game\u2019s Only Hope If It Wasn\u2019t Already Doomed<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"BO7Zombies\"
Promotional for Black Ops 7’s Zombies mode, featuring the Ultimis Crew riding “Ol’ Bessie.” | Call of Duty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>Since Call of Duty<\/em>\u2019s famous zombie mode has not blown me away much since 2017\u2019s Call of Duty: WWII<\/em>, I wasn\u2019t expecting much from this year\u2019s incarnation \u2013 I have to say, I\u2019m actually having some <\/em>fun with this one. The only map that has been released thus far, \u201cAshes of the Damned,\u201d is the largest zombies map to date (not counting the Warzone<\/em>-type maps in Modern Warfare III\u2019<\/em>s atrocious \u201cMWZ\u201d mode) and is really fun to explore, as you craft an armored truck named \u201cOl\u2019 Bessie\u201d in the spawn area and can drive it to different towns\/locations separated by drivable dead zones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s very reminiscent in feel and design to the fan-favorite \u201cTranZit\u201d map from Black Ops II<\/em>, even including renditions of the \u201cTown\u201d and \u201cDiner\u201d locations from that map, as well as a section of the \u201cAscension\u201d map from the first Black Ops<\/em> game. The mode is also the only place I\u2019ve truly found usage of the wall-jump mechanic, as you can utilize the walls and floating objects to maneuver around or above the zombie hordes to survive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alright, back to complaining. While the map is very fun and the game brings back the separate \u201cDead Ops Arcade\u201d experience that we haven\u2019t seen since 2020\u2019s Black Ops: Cold War<\/em>, there are still a few issues I have with \u201cAshes of the Damned.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, the Mystery Box (a cheap random weapon generator that appears in defined locations on the map) only exists in one spot at a time on the enormous map; this means that if you want to buy from it, you must drive to wherever it is at the given moment, taking a lot more time and energy from the player than ever before. Remember, the weapon given from the Box is random, so all of the time spent getting to it might not even be worth it \u2013 it could just as well give you something useless as something you actually want\/need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly, Black Ops 7<\/em> brings back four zombie mode-specific characters (the Ultimis crew, for those in the know) that the franchise claimed to permanently retire back in 2018\u2019s Black Ops 4<\/em>, in which they finished the characters\u2019 story that had spanned all games in the series up to that point. While it was certainly a hit of nostalgia to see them on-screen and hear their voices again while playing, their unannounced and unnecessary return felt like a major cop-out, throwing away their hard-earned ending only to drive player interest in the mode. Which brings me to the point I\u2019ve been hinting at this entire review:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Its Core, The Game is Poorly Executed Nostalgia-Bait At Best<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
\"BO7Operators\"
The operators included exclusively in the $90 Deluxe Edition of the game. | Call of Duty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/strong>As you may have noticed, much of what I have to say about this game is in reference to content from previous games, primarily Black Ops II<\/em>. This isn\u2019t just my insight as a longtime fan of the series \u2013 this is because the game genuinely relies on the appearances of characters, weapons, settings, and plotlines from that game to carry the crock of absolute shit they released this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no part of this game that doesn\u2019t feel derivative at best and insultingly underdeveloped at worst. In all three modes of the game, I\u2019m nearly constantly seeing a weapon, character, or venue that is either lifted directly from Black Ops II<\/em> or purposefully made to resemble it so closely that it may as well be the thing it\u2019s trying to be (a great example of this is the new Coda 9 pistol that looks and feels exactly<\/em> like the KAP-40 from the previous game).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While re-usage of assets\/designs from previous games in the franchise is nothing new for Call of Duty<\/em> \u2013 they\u2019ve been doing this to some extent since Call of Duty 2 <\/em>released in 2005 \u2013 it\u2019s never been this blatant of both an excuse for lack of ideas and a cover for an unfinished product. While the series still maintains a high standard in graphical quality, that seems to be the only place that this game truly succeeds; everywhere else is just an absolute mess and barely any change in minute-to-minute gameplay from last year\u2019s Black Ops 6<\/em>. All of this for a minimum price of $70 plus tax \u2013 not to mention the $90 deluxe edition? Go fuck yourself instead, I promise you\u2019ll have more fun at way less of a cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To conclude, let me speak on the elephant in the room for Call of Duty <\/em>fans around the world: this is what Activision decided to give us instead of remastering or remaking Black Ops II<\/em>. We\u2019ve been clamoring for such a re-release of our favorite game in the series since the release of Modern Warfare Remastered<\/em> in 2017, and we still have yet to get it or anything like it for any game in the Black Ops <\/em>subseries. Instead, the executives in charge of our beloved franchise that we continue dumping nearly a hundred dollars minimum into every year have decided to give us this sequel that we didn\u2019t ask for and, now that it\u2019s released, don\u2019t really want. If that\u2019s not enough to start protesting for change, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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