Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

Overall, Black Ops 7 is the best Call of Duty game I’ve played in a few years.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is nothing short of ambitious, expanding on the classic Call of Duty formula with more cooperative gameplay opportunities and just enough nostalgia to keep things interesting. Not all of the game's "seven pillars" hold up due to light content at launch, but there's potential for post-launch seasonal content to make up for shortcomings.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 features some of the strongest launch content a Call of Duty game has had in years. The best part? It can all be played with friends and everything you do counts towards overall progression. But more importantly, the stellar maps and addictive Endgame provide ample ways to play Call of Duty how you want to. Incorporating best-in-class shooting to all these modes means that each pillar of Black Ops 7 is satisfying, exciting, and challenging. This may be the hardest Call of Duty to put down yet.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 shouldn't work. Coming a year after the controversial Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, six years of pent-up resentment towards an irksome matchmaking system and years of increasingly abhorrent monetization, Black Ops 7 had a massive hill to climb. Despite all this, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 not only works, but vastly outshines recent Call of Duty releases. Treyarch's focus on refining the mechanics of Black Ops 6, rolling back many of the franchise's controversial systems of years past and building fun spaces to play in has paid dividends. The campaign is a mixed bag thanks to a weak overarching plot and terrible Avalon missions that are offset thanks to strong character moments and the brilliant Endgame mode. Multiplayer launches in the best state it's been in years thanks to movement tweaks that put more emphasis on gunplay skill over sliding, open matchmaking and the best set of launch maps in years. Zombies also gets a glow-up thanks to the brilliant Ashes of the Damned and Dead Ops Arcade 4. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 doesn't break the mold or make meaningful changes to the formula, but it does refine the current formula into the best launch experience a Call of Duty has had in years. Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is the win the franchise has been looking for.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a shooter packed with content. While its campaign focuses entirely on action and doesn't quite reach the narrative quality of the previous chapter, the emphasis on co-op play, the shared progression system, the spectacular new Endgame mode (which will continue to evolve over time), the most substantial Zombies mode yet, and a competitive multiplayer offering an impressive number of maps and modes right from launch - with Absolute Movement shining brighter than ever and further refined - all stand as strong points that are sure to thrill longtime fans of the series.

With Black Ops 7, Treyarch isn’t trying to revolutionize the series, it’s trying to master it, to make it more coherent and more generous. An intense, horror-tinged campaign, an ambitious and timely End Game, a sharper and richer multiplayer, and a Zombies mode that remains truly monumental, the formula is complete and effective. With its hybrid perks, consistently modernized gameplay, and unified progression system, Treyarch delivers a dense, coherent entry that feels perfectly tuned for 2025. A modern, fast-paced, intelligent Call of Duty, faithful to its heritage… yet clearly looking toward the future.

Black Ops 7 offers solid co-op action and refined multiplayer with great maps and modes, but its campaign lacks Cold War’s brilliance. Bold, fun, yet not revolutionary.

Black Ops 7 attempts to redefine the series' historical formula with a more cohesive ecosystem, based on advanced mobility, shared progression and intertwined modes: not everything is uniform, the flaws are different, but the global result is ambitious, rich, alive.

I had a great time playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and at first, I felt quite overwhelmed by the huge amount of content that it provided. The game’s campaign is not the best out there, but it’s worth playing for the creative story, new-to-COD elements, and the unlocks you get towards your multiplayer experience. Speaking of multiplayer, I still think that’s where Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 manages to shine the most. The new game mode Skirmish will be an acquired taste, but generally, it’s pretty immersive and enjoyable. And of course, the Zombies mode is one of the top highlights, it has a great campaign and with 4 different game modes there as well, you have lots of content just to play that side of the game. As a complete package, I think that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has a lot to offer, and everyone will certainly have its favorites. It’s a great game for casuals that want to get into an FPS, and hardcore COD players will surely enjoy unlocking weapons, attachments and mastering the weapons they like the most.

Moving past a single-player campaign that merely demonstrates the laziness of simply wanting to get the 'homework' done, Black Ops 7 proves once again to be a reliable, noteworthy game and a sure guarantee of longevity, owed primarily to its multiplayer and zombies modes. Call of Duty surprises us yet again with its immediacy and the ease with which players—even the less experienced or complete newcomers—can adapt to the game. The nerf to aim assist is noticeable, it's undeniable, but this can be overcome with a good number of hours played. Graphically clean, without hesitation even in the most impactful moments, Activision achieves its goal of keeping the competition alive in the FPS video game landscape. However, it now has an uncomfortable adversary sitting on the throne beside it—one that they'd be wise to be wary of, to avoid being dethroned.

Black Ops 7 takes the series into 2035 with high-tech gear, drones and fast, explosive combat. Its biggest swing is a co-op focused campaign built around hallucination-driven missions that constantly twist environments and tone. Zombies returns to classic round-based action with multiple modes, while multiplayer keeps the sharp, fast Black Ops feel, now boosted by futuristic abilities and expanded movement. It’s a bolder, less traditional entry that leans heavily into co-op and high-energy action rather than classic grounded storytelling.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 builds on what made last year’s Black Ops 6 such a breath of fresh air, tightening up the gunplay and movement while still finding time to introduce a huge, polished new game mode. It’s not the quantum leap that the last game was, but it’s still one of the best entries in the series to date.

Whatever you think about the series and its problematic role in how the mainstream games industry works, how it is perceived and the types of communities it engenders, this is slick, thrilling entertainment. Nowhere else will you be blasting a giant robot in a corporate science lab one minute, and then playing a modern take on Atari’s Super Sprint the next. Value matters right now, and in this as in almost everything else, Call of Duty does not hold back. It is a maximalist paean to the ultimate, troubling truth of video game design – shooting stuff on a TV screen is a hell of a lot of fun.

A year after Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Black Ops 7 doesn't try to reinvent the wheel: it essentially builds its offering on the innovations of its predecessor, but it does it well, even very well. The wall jump is perfectly integrated and complements the gameplay, whose frenetic pace remains as exhilarating as ever. The cooperative campaign, for its part, fully delivers on its promise. For the rest, everything isn't perfect, and there's a lingering sense of recycling, even of incompleteness in some cases. This was undoubtedly the price to pay for bringing such generous content to life. A very solid game, but one that doesn't quite reach the pinnacle.

The biggest Black Ops ever: packed with content and fun, but with a weak campaign and a few aspects that need refinement.

The biggest Call of Duty isn't the best.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 delivers us a Campaign mode with unusual events that could potentially result in a mixed reception by the players followed by the all new Endgame mode packed with various yet repetitive activities and a very exciting Zombie mode keeping you at the edge of your seat. The Multiplayer mode of course comes with many quality of life improvements, engaging mechanics and unique maps making it a super fun experience.

Call of Duty is suddenly barely recognizable in the Black Ops 7 campaign, while multiplayer is a real blast thanks to the series' old strengths.

Compared with recent entries, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 actually shows a level of sincerity. The campaign takes a clear step back narratively, but it remains playable and reasonably engaging. Multiplayer is easily the strongest first outing the series has seen in years, while Zombies and the campaign's endgame are serviceable additions that still provide enough long-term pull for PvE fans.

A wildly uneven entry in the COD franchise, Black Ops 7 offers a lot for a certain type of player, but as a result of certain changes, it may have left its traditional fans out in the cold.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 tries to do a lot of things. It doesn't all come off but the end result is more game to play. The core elements are all there, and even if you think the campaign is an abomination, you still have PvP and zombies that don't stray as far from the course—just like you had every other year.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 boasts a wealth of content that's probably unmatched in the series, though some of its components aren't as qualitatively up to par with previous installments. The campaign is, without a doubt, among the worst ever seen in the series, and the endgame mode, while fun, currently has little to offer. Fortunately, multiplayer and Zombies, with their blend of tradition and innovation, manage the difficult task of carrying the weight of a product that, more than ever this year, is struggling to establish itself on the market.

“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” Charlie Chaplin’s words capture Black Ops 7 in a single stroke. The campaign disappoints when viewed as a traditional Call of Duty experience, but if you set your expectations aside and view it simply as a co-op experience, it goes down a bit easier. Meanwhile, its multiplayer endures, drawing players back with reliable run-and-gun pacing and solid gunplay.

In a year filled with successful shooters like Battlefield 6 and ARC Raiders, Call of Duty Black Ops 7 doubles down on zombies and esotericism to stand out. The game refines its formula and expands on what we saw in BO6 with even more content, but without solving some problems.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 delivers a finely tuned multiplayer and a solid Zombies mode, but is dragged down by one of the weakest campaigns in the history of the series. The evolution of movement, perks, and shared progression is welcome, yet the futuristic setting diminishes the cinematic atmosphere, and the cooperative campaign fails both narratively and in terms of design. The result is a highly uneven entry that excels in PvP but disappoints everywhere else.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 is what we have come to expect from the franchise for better and worse. It just doesn’t do enough to set itself apart and recommend at full price, unless you specifically want the game for zombie mode.

The Call of Duty franchise seriously needs a break. With Black Ops 7, the series is practically screaming “WE’RE EXHAUSTED, PLEASE SAVE US.” The multiplayer side still manages to be fun thanks to the evolving “omnimovement” system. But this utterly disastrous story mode is simply beyond forgiveness. I highly doubt they’ll do it, but if they gave the series just a one-year break, they could come back in a completely different (and much better) form.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 leaves a truly mixed impression. The campaign, which is too arcade-like and too similar to Zombie mode, lacks charm, pace, and consistency. Multiplayer offers solid content for a launch, but strays into excessive futurism that breaks the readability. Fortunately, Zombie mode clearly saves the day: complete, coherent, demanding, and fun, it recaptures the spirit of the best installments. Ultimately, this Call of Duty is solid in places, but very unbalanced when you look at it in detail. It feels like there was no balance in the development of each game mode. Some modes, notably Zombie, received more attention than others.

With excellent maps, slick and expressive movement, and the superb new Overload mode, Black Ops 7’s core multiplayer experience is brilliant. Zombies fans have plenty to sink their teeth into, even if a lot of its modes return from past games. BO7’s campaign, however, is its biggest disappointment, and its Endgame experiment mostly falls flat.

With stellar gunplay and great maps, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has some of the best multiplayer and zombies action in the series so far. The intriguing new Endgame mode is also a highlight, so it’s a huge shame that the rest of the co-op campaign is a rushed and sloppy mess that drags the overall package down.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 satisfies multiplayer and zombie fans, but the co-op campaign is a complete disappointment.

The franchise knows how to revolutionize the genre, but this new installment doesn’t reach the spectacle of previous entries. The system is more polished than ever and visually impressive, yet it falls into the comfort zone and tries to steer into unfamiliar waters, turning into something that doesn’t quite feel like Call of Duty. The weapons and the new movement system are fun, but they’re not enough to fill the gaps of a dull story that almost pushes this military shooter into an entirely different subgenre, bordering on the fantastical.

The campaign in Black Ops 7 changes everything, for better and for worse. You face psychological horror on your own or cooperatively with friends, fight humongous bosses and move through crazy, surreal levels using grappling hooks and super jumps. Some enemies are annoyingly spongy, some boss mechanics more frustrating than entertaining. The story is unbelievably nonsensical, even for Call of Duty. Multiplayer is chock-full of the usual competitive modes for teams of 6 or 20 players, Warzone and Zombies are present, as well, as is Endgame, a new cooperative Warzone mode against AI enemies. Multiplayer is solid, the Gunsmith feature allows for lots of exciting possibilities, but weapon-balancing could use a little more fine-tuning.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a refinement of what's already to be expected, crisp gunplay and fun multiplayer content. Outside of that, it loses its luster. The campaign alone singlehandedly sours the experience, with the narrative going so far off the rails that it unintentionally becomes a parody of a different game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 offers predictable but fun multiplayer, interesting additions to its zombies mode, but a single-player/co-op campaign that’s tedious and too goofy by far.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is actually a surprisingly fun game, but it doesn't truly live up to the spirit of Call of Duty. They're particularly disrespectful of the story modes that have shaped the series in recent years. They're stuffing all the zombie and multiplayer-based modes into the main story. Under normal circumstances, Raul Menendez would have been a better fit with AI. We could have seen more compelling action in 2035, and with the new characters introduced by David Mason and Mike Harper, we could have had a truly fantastic experience. So what have they done? They've gone out of their way to use the same maps, use certain characters, turn them into monsters, and make them play everything but Call of Duty. Respect your past games, and the story mode that brought you to this level. While it's not as terrible as Modern Warfare III, it has a terrible story mode.

With the sheer number of excellent shooters available this year, it’s difficult to recommend Black Ops 7. It’s undeniably a highly replayable game tailored for fans, but that’s not what this franchise needs. Turning the campaign into another dumping ground of camo challenges and meta grinds really shows the current priorities of Activision. Zombies is the last bastion of innovation left, yet I fear it’s not enough to keep players around. The creativity that once made Call of Duty an industry trailblazer has long been forgotten.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 struggles to deliver a compelling campaign, offering a confusing, disjointed story with little emotional impact. The multiplayer returns fast-paced and chaotic, but lacks real identity or meaningful evolution from last year’s entry. Zombies is the clear highlight, ambitious and packed with content, proving where the game truly shines. Despite its scale and expectations, the overall package feels rushed and uneven. A divided experience that falls short of the legacy it tries to honor.

If you are really into the Black Ops Zombies mode and multiplayer, then Black Ops 7 is worth grabbing, but if you plan to spend most of your time elsewhere, then you can skip this year’s mixed entry.

Mechanically, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a good game, and I'd even risk calling it one of the best multiplayer shooters to come out this year in that regard. The problem is that mechanics are tools, and the game they are subordinate to is a poor artisan. Between the uninspired futuristic aesthetics and the nonsensical campaign, it's upsetting to see that this is what Call of Duty could come up with after the strongest release in over a decade. All the fun of Zombies is not enough to spare Black Ops 7 from being the worst game in the franchise, and the only saving grace is that it might serve as a cautionary tale about complacency when managing popular franchises.

The latest Black Ops 7 not only pales in comparison to Battlefield 6, but it also doesn't measure up to the previous Call of Duty games.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 sadly highlights the limits of a franchise that once defined multiplayer FPS excellence but now feels exhausted by its relentless annual cycle. Rushed production is obvious: the single-player campaign, once the series’ emotional core, is chaotic, blending robots, zombies, mutant plants, and hallucinogenic gas, with no checkpoints, no pause, and mandatory online connection. It’s less a true solo campaign than a co-op multiplayer dressed up with a few cutscenes...The endgame is equally disappointing: flat maps, weak enemy AI, and powers that quickly lose appeal make it feel shallow compared to ARC Raiders or Battlefield 6. Multiplayer is uneven, innovations like wall-jumping and omni-movement can be fun, but cramped maps, frantic action, and unbalanced mechanics drag the experience down. Some modes, like Surcharge, bring strategy, and removing SBMM helps, but they can’t mask the lack of real evolution...Zombies mode expands combat and maps but remains forgettable, while Dead Ops Arcade 4 is just a fleeting diversion. Black Ops 7 isn’t unplayable, but it’s rushed and uninspired. Die-hard fans may enjoy a few sessions with friends, but most players will likely turn to more polished competitors like Battlefield 6 or ARC Raiders.

If Activision and the numerous studios working on Call of Duty wish to make a game worth buying each year, the answer is innovation. It’s time to be bold and try something new. You have a problem as an annual franchise when players are constantly asking what’s new in this year’s entry. The market is not going anywhere—that much is clear with EA propelling its Battlefield franchise to bigger heights than ever. However, if Call of Duty cannot find a pathway to be creative, I fear the franchise will only continue to stagnate, becoming only a memory of what once was.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 feels more like Black Ops 6.5. Everything from the in-game UI, to the gameplay feel of the core modes, are hardly different from last year’s game. There are a few meaningful changes to Multiplayer and Zombies, but they don’t overcome some baffling design decisions, which are tied together by the worst Black Ops storyline to date. Treyarch, for my money, is still the best studio making Call of Duty games, but Black Ops 7 is clear evidence that Activision and Microsoft need to give them more time to cook.

An awful campaign and a lack of innovation drag down the most content-stuffed Call Of Duty game to date, with an eye largely locked to past glories.

Black Ops 7 is a painful proof that even the most talented studio can’t overcome time constraints. Low overall quality of this game is a direct consequence of the publisher’s greed – they are serving a meal that is somewhat enjoyable at first but costs like the most fancy course in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

I hope Call of Duty 2026 is like a defibrillator and not only gives the series a second wind, but also revitalizes my love and enthusiasm for this franchise that I have been playing since I was 5 years old.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 certainly aimed for an easy victory, but this year's competition is fierce. While it offers abundant content and diverse experiences, excelling at player retention through extensive progression, quantity isn't everything, and its shortcomings are significant. The campaign is poor, the endgame is dull, and the multiplayer mode is conventional. It lacks soul and authenticity. Only the Zombies mode is noteworthy, significantly raising the bar. Overall, it's an average Call of Duty game that will struggle to maintain interest until next year.

The worst campaign in Call of Duty history awaits, but even as an overall package, Activision's latest feels woefully by-the-numbers.

Call of Duty series is undergoing a serious crisis, and the new installment of Black Ops, instead of helping it get out of trouble, only exacerbates existing problems and adds many new ones.

Packed with awful mission design, an always-online campaign mode, nauseating AI slop, and microtransactions everywhere, Black Ops 7 is the nadir for the iconic franchise and a miserable experience all around.

If we're at a point where one way to make COD feel "new" is to revive ideas from more than a decade ago, that is perhaps a sign that the series needs a break, or at least a hard reset. [Issue#419, p.112]

Activision bet high on the intensity that started with Black Ops 6, but it backfired. Multiplayer is as decent as it can be, but it doesn't make up for the campaign, which feels more like a Zombies spin-off with Hollywood actors than an actual story.

Black Ops 7 is Call of Duty at its most obnoxious and least enjoyable.

Between a dire campaign, samey multiplayer, and a pervading sense of stagnation, Call of Duty Black Ops 7 is a disappointment and serves as, perhaps, the worst Call of Duty title in years. Save yourself some money and play Battlefield 6 or Arc Raiders instead.

Call of Duty : Black Ops 7 walked into Battlefield 6's release like Sideshow Bob walking into a comically big rake. From a disastrous coop campaign to an overly-complex zombie mode, this is probably the worst main episode ever released, feeling like a 2010's parody of Call of Duty.