Last year’s Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 was an undeniable success. After some bloated entries in the long-running series, fans praised its back-to-basics approach to shooting enemy soldiers and despite launching day one on the subscription-based Xbox Game Pass, it still managed to become one of the best-selling games of 2024.
For this year’s annual release, developers Activision have stuck closely to the winning formula. Developed in tandem with Black Ops 6, Black Ops 7 is bigger in every way imaginable. The classic Multiplayer offers more game modes, more maps and more weapons but the basics remain the same – kill the enemy team in a series of frustratingly entertaining battles. Win or lose, it’s a guaranteed dopamine hit that’ll have you saying ‘just one more match’ until the early hours of the morning.
The gory Zombies mode also makes a welcome return, with players needing to survive a never-ending wave of undead horrors. For newcomers, the Directive mode will introduce you to the game’s twisted storyline of alternative dimensions and experiments gone wrong while diehard players can see how they fare with handicaps in the new hardcore Cursed mode.
The biggest change comes in the story-driven Campaign mode. Black Ops 6 was a gritty, grounded tale of ‘90s espionage but Black Ops 7 jumps the ongoing story forward to 2035. If a dystopian future of oppressive surveillance and all-powerful tech companies set after a second cold war wasn’t terrifying enough, our plucky band of super soldiers must also deal with a powerful toxin that makes their worst fears a reality. It should be an emotionally-charged retread of the nightmare scenarios and tough decisions that have defined the previous six games but it mostly manifest as different hulking beasties that can only be defeated by a barrage of bullets. It’s Black Mirror meets Fast And The Furious.
You can also take on the Campaign mode with up to three friends, making the strange, surreal story even more entertaining. Solo players suffer as a result though. Missions aren’t adjusted to accommodate the lack of back-up so chewing through the Stormtrooper-inspired Guild soldiers occasionally feels like a chore while not being able to pause means you have to commit to the game in hour-long chunks.
The new Endgame mode looks to extend the life of Campaign beyond the initial eleven levels, with players needing to complete missions across a giant map, level up their gear and take out anyone that stands in their way. It does feel like Call Of Duty already had this covered between the free-to-play online battle royale Warzone and multiplayer Skirmish games though. However, there are limited-time events planned for the coming months so there’s scope for Endgame to evolve into something unique but with just twelve months until the next Call Of Duty is released, the race is on.
Across Black Ops 7, gunplay, movement and visuals have all been polished but outside of Campaign, there’s not a huge difference between this and its 2024 predecessor. It makes the £60 price tag feel a little awkward, even if you’ll probably spend more hours in the near-future world of Black Ops 7 than any other game you play this year. It’s heaps of fun but it never feels essential.
Available on Xbox X/S, PlayStation 5 and Windows
