One of the biggest games of 2025, and arguably the biggest game of the autumn season, is about to release: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the latest entry in the dominant FPS series and a direct sequel to last year's Black Ops 6. The juggernaut title will be available to everyone across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation on Friday (tomorrow, at the time of writing), and is already playable for some due to its regional launch times.
Though Black Ops 7 faces strong competition from Electronic Arts' (EA) own popular shooter Battlefield 6, the large-scale FPS hasn't dented Call of Duty's player counts much so far. Undoubtedly, many crave the wild and frenetic deathmatch-style gameplay that Call of Duty does best, as opposed to the slower, structured, and sandbox-driven nature of Battlefield.
Thus, the game is expected to skyrocket to the top of player count and sales charts when it launches, as Call of Duty always does. At release, however, developers Treyarch and Raven Software have made some huge changes to its gameplay that have so far proven to be rather divisive in the community.
Those changes are some major adjustments to how the game's rotational aim assist — a feature that helps controller players offset the less precise nature of aiming with thumbsticks, compared to using a PC mouse — works. Overall, the strength of aim assist has been nerfed considerably, though at long range it's actually been buffed a bit.
The developers detailed the changes in the Black Ops 7 launch week patch notes, noting that "Our goal with the adjustments is to create a more balanced and competitive experience for all players, regardless of input choice. It is also important to us that these changes preserve the core feel of Call of Duty controller gameplay." Notably, these adjustments affect Black Ops 7 as well as Call of Duty: Warzone.
So, what specifically changed? The biggest tweak is arguably the addition of a right stick aiming requirement for aim assist to fully kick in, which essentially means that your aim assist strength will be reduced unless you're actively using your right thumbstick to try and track your target. Previously, you'd get the full benefit of aim assist whether you were doing this or not.
On top of that, the developers have also increased the range before full aim assist strength activates, so in order to get the best help from aim assist, you'll need to manually aim closer to your enemy than you had to during Black Ops 7's October Open Beta. At long range, though, aim assist strength has been increased.
It was determined that controller players had a slight edge over keyboard and mouse users up close, but were disadvantaged at range. These changes are intended to make engagements between the two input methods more balanced.
Explaining the adjustments, Treyarch and Raven Software noted that after reviewing data and collecting feedback from players, it was determined that controller players had a slight edge over keyboard and mouse users up close, but were disadvantaged at range. These changes are intended to make engagements between the two input methods more balanced.
"When looking at engagements between similarly skilled controller and keyboard/mouse (KBM) players, we found that controller is slightly favored to win at close ranges and KBM is favored at long ranges. In addition to collecting data, we have also followed community discussions on the effectiveness of Rotational Aim Assist," wrote the Call of Duty team. "Based on the data and feedback, our launch adjustments focus on the strength of Rotational Aim Assist at short and long range, as well as the requirements to fully activate Rotational Aim Assist."
I'm not a big Call of Duty player myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but on the occasions I've jumped into the FPS on a controller, I have felt that the game's aim assist was quite strong compared to other shooters. Therefore, I'm glad to see these nerfs come, and it seems many others are, as well.
However, if early conversations about the changes are anything to go by, it's also clear that lots of players feel that the tweaks were too strong, and that Black Ops 7's aim assist now barely feels like it's there at all. Our own Managing Editor Richard Devine is big into Call of Duty himself, and tells me it feels significantly less aggressive in close-range engagements than it did before.
Overall, though, it's good that the devs are trying to strike a better balance between controller and keyboard and mouse players.
Of course, it's far too early to determine anything for certain, as most people around the world don't even have access to Black Ops 7 yet and the global player base should play with and get a feel for the tweaks for calling for a rollback or further adjustments. Overall, though, it's good that the devs are trying to strike a better balance between controller and keyboard and mouse players.
Note that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is available to purchase on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PS5, and PS4 for $69.99. It's also available to play through Xbox Game Pass; specifically, it's accessible through PC Game Pass or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
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