I’ve made plenty of videos expressing my excitement for Black Ops 7’s co-op campaign; after all, my favorite COD is Black Ops 3 which was the last campaign to have co-op in it. The setting is bold—jumping into 2035, bringing near-future tech, new traversal options, and cross-progression that ties every mode together. On paper, Black Ops 7 feels like Treyarch and Raven pouring ambition into every corner: a co-op campaign, shared “Endgame” PvE content, a massive Zombies offering, and a multiplayer suite stacked with maps and weapons. But after spending time across every mode, that ambition didn’t translate into something with real soul. I kept searching for that spark—the identity that usually defines Black Ops—and found myself bouncing between features that looked good in bullet points but didn’t always land in execution. Even with four-player co-op and progression that carries across the entire game, Black Ops 7 struggles to carve out its own identity beyond “more Call of Duty.”

It’s in the Gas, Mason!

The campaign is introduced as the most innovative in series history, letting you squad up with friends or run solo with global progression that ties directly into multiplayer. I appreciated that approach immediately. The cross-progression works well and makes every mission feel connected to the broader grind, giving you real value for the time invested. Playing with three friends adds a fun layer of chaos and spectacle that older Black Ops titles couldn’t pull off. But once the novelty settles, the structure reveals itself as thin. The narrative leans heavily on setups we’ve already seen—rogue threats, covert ops falling apart, a world hanging on the brink. It’s a greatest-hits remix of the franchise’s own story beats without the punch that made the classics memorable. The JSOC squad you’re running with is painfully one-dimensional, hitting broad archetypes without anything deeper to latch onto. Their interactions feel surface-level, and their presence never elevates the stakes.

Then there’s Endgame, the new shared PvE mode that bridges the campaign with extraction-style progression. Conceptually, it’s big: 32-player lobbies, escalating difficulty zones, dynamic assignments, and an open landscape to move through. Yet I never found a reason to care. There’s no real weight or consequence behind the mode. Extraction thrives on tension and losing something meaningful; here, everything feels replaceable and low-risk. It became a loop I ran once or twice and never felt pulled back toward. The campaign is fun at times, but mostly bad; it lacks staying power and originality.

Just More COD

Multiplayer has always been the backbone of Black Ops, and this year delivers volume. At launch, 18 maps and 30 weapons is a massive offering. Sixteen of those maps are 6v6 arenas, and three are pulled from Black Ops 2. The rest dives into near-future tech, both visually and mechanically, with refined gunplay and the new Omnimovement system. And to be clear: the guns feel great. Weapon systems have been completely reworked for the 2035 arsenal, and you can feel it immediately. Recoil patterns, punchiness, visual fidelity, and that signature Treyarch snap all shine. TTK sits in a satisfying sweet spot—not too fast, not too slow—and firefights feel responsive in a way that rewards movement and positioning equally. However, I wasn’t excited by the map selection. As polished as they are, I kept wishing some of the newer BO6 maps were back instead of more throwbacks. With so many classics returning, the overall pool feels uneven, almost like the game is leaning too heavily on nostalgia and not enough on fresh layout innovation. The Omnimovement—wall jumps, perk-driven traversal tweaks, wingsuits in Skirmish—injects energy, but the sandbox around it doesn’t always push the mechanic to its limit.

Speaking of modes, Skirmish is a cool concept: large-scale 20v20 battles with mixed objectives, wingsuits, grappling hooks, and vehicles. It’s chaotic, but it doesn’t redefine anything. Overload, the new 6v6 mode, brings some tension through its single carried objective, but it still lands as more variety rather than reinvention. Multiplayer gets the job done. It’s familiar, mechanically strong, and loaded with content. But it’s also safe—so safe that it doesn’t feel like the series is evolving beyond what we’ve already seen.

More Zombies

Zombies returns with Ashes of the Damned, billed as the biggest round-based map Treyarch has ever built. The map is huge, layered with new locations, and anchored by the Wonder Vehicle, “Ol’ Tessie,” complete with upgrades, repairs, and T.E.D.D.’s voice guiding you around. The Necrofluid Gauntlet is a standout addition, mixing pulling, piercing, and life-draining effects in creative ways. There’s a lot here: Standard mode, Survival maps returning for the first time since BO2, the new ultra-hard “Cursed” mode, Dead Ops Arcade 4, and over 60 new upgrades across the Augment system. It’s an enormous offering.

Zombies in Black Ops 7 is polished, huge, and full of systems—yet it didn’t pull me in with the momentum I expected. The narrative connections to the Black Ops 6 storyline and alternate versions of the iconic crew are interesting, but the mode didn’t give me that instant spark to keep grinding for hours. Everything is competent, everything works, but it lacks that magnetic loop that used to define the mode. For longtime fans, there’s plenty to chew on. For me, though, the Zombies experience felt just as lukewarm as the campaign: big production, big ideas, not a lot of emotional pull.

REVIEW SCORE: 6.5/10

There’s no denying the amount of content Treyarch included here. Black Ops 7 is stacked—campaign co-op, huge Zombies, dozens of maps, revamped movement, a modernized arsenal, and progression systems that now span the entire game. Yet even with all that ambition, the final product doesn’t hit with the confidence or identity this series used to command. The campaign feels structurally weak with a familiar storyline. The new extraction-style Endgame mode lacks consequence. Multiplayer is polished but treads familiar ground. Zombies is big but not captivating. Cross-progression and four-player co-op are wins, but they’re small wins inside a package struggling to define itself.

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