Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies return
By Paul Hunter
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Treyarch and Raven bring the Black Ops timeline forward to 2035, and then hands you a full stack of modes that all feed into the same global progression system.
The campaign is co-op focused this time, and while you can play it solo you can definitely feel it was built for four-player co-op. The campaign includes a new Endgame mission playable with up to 32 players and turns the Avalon open world map into a repeatable playground where you drop in, complete objectives, and exfil with your secured rewards. It gives the story side of Black Ops 7 a longer tail than the usual one-and-done run.
Multiplayer and Zombies co-op modes are also included in the package. Eighteen maps and thirty weapons are available at launch, with new movement abilities, a fresh 6v6 objective mode, and a large-scale 20v20 mode for those into big team battles. Zombies returns with the huge Ashes of the Damned map, and Dead Ops Arcade 4 is back with more arcade zombie-slaying action. The real question is whether Black Ops 7 mix of content this year makes it must play on PS5. Let’s find out!
Missions are tuned around two to four people moving through firefights where armoured synthetics and soldiers push in from several angles and reviving teammates is essential to win. You can still run the campaign solo, but it can get overwhelming fast and I wouldn't really recommend it.
Most of the campaign doesn't feel like a standard military story as your team's been infected with a psychochemical virus that alters their minds. Missions switch between grounded raids and wild hallucinations where memories blur together, with call backs to past Black Ops moments reimagined under a drug haze.
Once you are done with 11 of the main missions, the final 12th mission, called Endgame, opens up the player pool to 32 with teams dropping into an open-world Avalon. As a team you'll clear objectives, and extract with gear and experience that carry into the rest of the game. Endgame turns the campaign from a single run into something you can keep revisiting to gain XP and secure more loot.
What impressed me most is how solid the gameplay basics are. Gunplay is the best it's ever been, but it's Omnimovement that brings the newness. Wall jumps and perk movement give you quick options to peek, back off, or change height, which opens up new ways to push or escape during a fight.
Among the modes, Overload quickly became my go-to 6v6 playlist. Both teams must rush towards a spawned device and then carrying it into enemy territory to score a point. I also enjoyed the all-new 20v20 Skirmish mode that takes place on large Avalon maps, with wingsuits and grappling hooks turning battfields into intense airborne assaults, backed by vehicles your squad can jump into to control the ground.
New to Black Ops 7 is the Overclock system that lets you upgrade tacticals, lethals, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks during matches. Weapon Prestige and Mastery camos give you long-term goals for each gun, and the Camo Hub, Challenges, and Weekly Challenges keep pushing you towards new unlocks and better loadouts. A couple of launch maps have awkward lanes, yet overall multiplayer is where Black Ops 7 shines brightest.
The story side picks up directly from Black Ops 6's Zombie mode, with Weaver’s crew colliding with alternate versions of the classic Zombies cast of Richtofen, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo. You can squad up with either lineup, and the mash-up energy running through the dialogue while you try to hold back zombie waves and keep your perks. One run, we loaded into Ashes with the original crew, piled into Ol’ Tessie, and tried to sprint from a farm outpost to a tower while a barrage of enemies chased us down the road. We barely limped into the next safe spot with armour flashing red across everyone’s HUD.
Moment to moment, you are juggling a lot of tools. You have 30 weapons choices to unlock, a full spread of Perk-a-Colas, Ammo Mods, Field Upgrades, GobbleGums, and an Augment system that now has over 60 upgrades to unlock. Wonder weapons are back, including the classic Ray Gun, along with the new Necrofluid Gauntlet that lets you raise spikes out of the ground and drain health from anything unlucky enough to be in the way. Standard is the usual progression-based mode, while Survival mode strips things back to a pistol starting weapon, no minimap, and a classic point system, with Relics that add extra risk for better rewards.
Dead Ops Arcade 4 rounds out the co-op side with 80 stages, 20 plus arenas, and the choice between top-down and first-person camera angles, all while feeding XP back into your profile. Explosions pop, elemental shots stand out, and the environmental lighting makes it easy to track enemies and drops even when the action gets chaotic. For anyone who keeps coming back to COD for Zombies alone, this year's mode is arguably the best yet.
Final Score: 7/10 - Good
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Third-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Treyarch and Raven bring the Black Ops timeline forward to 2035, and then hands you a full stack of modes that all feed into the same global progression system.
The campaign is co-op focused this time, and while you can play it solo you can definitely feel it was built for four-player co-op. The campaign includes a new Endgame mission playable with up to 32 players and turns the Avalon open world map into a repeatable playground where you drop in, complete objectives, and exfil with your secured rewards. It gives the story side of Black Ops 7 a longer tail than the usual one-and-done run.
Multiplayer and Zombies co-op modes are also included in the package. Eighteen maps and thirty weapons are available at launch, with new movement abilities, a fresh 6v6 objective mode, and a large-scale 20v20 mode for those into big team battles. Zombies returns with the huge Ashes of the Damned map, and Dead Ops Arcade 4 is back with more arcade zombie-slaying action. The real question is whether Black Ops 7 mix of content this year makes it must play on PS5. Let’s find out!
Campaign and Endgame
The campaign in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 doubles down on last year's weirdness with a strange, near future mission set in 2035. You drop back into the boots of David “Section” Mason, leading the Specter One team through a story that draws on old Black Ops history while pushing into stranger territory with robotics and mind-altering chemicals.Missions are tuned around two to four people moving through firefights where armoured synthetics and soldiers push in from several angles and reviving teammates is essential to win. You can still run the campaign solo, but it can get overwhelming fast and I wouldn't really recommend it.
Most of the campaign doesn't feel like a standard military story as your team's been infected with a psychochemical virus that alters their minds. Missions switch between grounded raids and wild hallucinations where memories blur together, with call backs to past Black Ops moments reimagined under a drug haze.
Once you are done with 11 of the main missions, the final 12th mission, called Endgame, opens up the player pool to 32 with teams dropping into an open-world Avalon. As a team you'll clear objectives, and extract with gear and experience that carry into the rest of the game. Endgame turns the campaign from a single run into something you can keep revisiting to gain XP and secure more loot.
Multiplayer
On the competitive multiplayer side, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is, as expected, packed right out of the gate. The game launches with 18 maps, 16 of them tailored for 6v6 and two built for 20v20, and 30 weapons split across assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, marksman tools, and near future gadgets. Even before the first season begins in early December there's already a ton of multiplayer content no matter your preference.What impressed me most is how solid the gameplay basics are. Gunplay is the best it's ever been, but it's Omnimovement that brings the newness. Wall jumps and perk movement give you quick options to peek, back off, or change height, which opens up new ways to push or escape during a fight.
Among the modes, Overload quickly became my go-to 6v6 playlist. Both teams must rush towards a spawned device and then carrying it into enemy territory to score a point. I also enjoyed the all-new 20v20 Skirmish mode that takes place on large Avalon maps, with wingsuits and grappling hooks turning battfields into intense airborne assaults, backed by vehicles your squad can jump into to control the ground.
New to Black Ops 7 is the Overclock system that lets you upgrade tacticals, lethals, Field Upgrades, and Scorestreaks during matches. Weapon Prestige and Mastery camos give you long-term goals for each gun, and the Camo Hub, Challenges, and Weekly Challenges keep pushing you towards new unlocks and better loadouts. A couple of launch maps have awkward lanes, yet overall multiplayer is where Black Ops 7 shines brightest.
Zombies Mode
Zombies co-operative multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is where Treyarch goes all in on scale and mood. Ashes of the Damned is the biggest map the studio has built yet, spread across interlinked locations that range from corporate towers to a lonely lake and a cosmodrome. The whole thing is built around Ol’ Tessie, a beat up pickup that you upgrade, repair, and rely on to get your squad from one hot zone to the next while your robot bus driver T.E.D.D. gives directions from the driver’s seat.The story side picks up directly from Black Ops 6's Zombie mode, with Weaver’s crew colliding with alternate versions of the classic Zombies cast of Richtofen, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Takeo. You can squad up with either lineup, and the mash-up energy running through the dialogue while you try to hold back zombie waves and keep your perks. One run, we loaded into Ashes with the original crew, piled into Ol’ Tessie, and tried to sprint from a farm outpost to a tower while a barrage of enemies chased us down the road. We barely limped into the next safe spot with armour flashing red across everyone’s HUD.
Moment to moment, you are juggling a lot of tools. You have 30 weapons choices to unlock, a full spread of Perk-a-Colas, Ammo Mods, Field Upgrades, GobbleGums, and an Augment system that now has over 60 upgrades to unlock. Wonder weapons are back, including the classic Ray Gun, along with the new Necrofluid Gauntlet that lets you raise spikes out of the ground and drain health from anything unlucky enough to be in the way. Standard is the usual progression-based mode, while Survival mode strips things back to a pistol starting weapon, no minimap, and a classic point system, with Relics that add extra risk for better rewards.
Dead Ops Arcade 4 rounds out the co-op side with 80 stages, 20 plus arenas, and the choice between top-down and first-person camera angles, all while feeding XP back into your profile. Explosions pop, elemental shots stand out, and the environmental lighting makes it easy to track enemies and drops even when the action gets chaotic. For anyone who keeps coming back to COD for Zombies alone, this year's mode is arguably the best yet.
The Verdict
As a complete package, Black Ops 7 mostly delivers. The co-op campaign is a bit uneven, but I enjoyed Endgame’s big squad raids, multiplayer is as good as ever, and Zombies gives us its best version yet. Black Ops 7 stands out as a top-tier Call of Duty release and is an easy recommendation for any fan of the series.Final Score: 7/10 - Good
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 details
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, PS4, Xbox OneDeveloper: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Third-Person Shooter
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
A key was provided by the publisher.