Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Review: Multiplayer and Zombies are the Only Guarantee of Quality

In the always fierce FPS landscape, there is one series that towers above the rest and has long held a prominent role in the first-person shooter genre. Sometimes it manages to churn out (like last year) a great title, other times expectations clash with harsh reality. We are talking about Call of Duty, which this year once again releases its game to try and confirm itself as the best title on the market. In our review, we will dissect Activision's title, ready to praise its highlights, without sparing criticism where necessary. Will the king manage to keep his crown and scepter without being deposed by his sworn rival called Battlefield 6? Let's find out together!

Here once upon a time it was all Campaign, my dear...

Let's start, as often, with the single-player aspect to find ourselves facing a story we wouldn't have expected. After last year's excellent campaign, the hope was absolutely that the story would continue and that many elements would be similar to what we had already seen. But no. Call of Duty in this new episode completely overturns the story, not only in the plot, but above all in the content. The beginning sees a certain Raul Menendez threatening the world with a dangerous reddish toxin, which not only causes the death of those who come into contact with it, but also has other effects. After faking his death, Raul returns many years later to complete what he had planned: to plunge the world into chaos.

Colonel Troy Marshall is hired to stop the madman's plan, and he will bring his loyal battle companions with him. A plot certainly lacking bite, sets the stage, but the worst comes shortly after, without even getting that far into the story. The possibility of expanding the story after completing the last mission, where we will access an unprecedented PVE mode, is nice. However, it will take you very little time to realize that we are facing a campaign that has very little of the COD style. This lethal virus becomes the alibi for abandoning any affection and peculiar characteristic that has always distinguished the Call of Duty series. Visions, hallucinations, psychedelic colors, colossal bosses, giant spiders, and buildings-sized swords falling on enemies: we are, to all intents and purposes, under the influence of mind-altering substances that create monstrosities. The problem is another: all of this neither represents nor brings honor to the COD brand.

For the approximately 6 hours of the campaign, we were in a state of pure agony, regretting the good old days and cursing what COD has become. The characters have no personality, and in a historical period where artificial intelligence now seems like a true life companion, the one reserved for COD is truly embarrassing. In the midst of a frantic phase, we found ourselves watching two enemy soldiers calmly descending a ladder from a tower, completely oblivious that the world around them was in chaos. We could give other examples, but this episode just recounted is the emblem of something that is not working at all in the right direction.

One of the very few joys is represented by having seen a preview of some glimpses of Avalon, the new map that will arrive on Warzone in 2026. Should we be content? Definitely not! One of the few welcome (and not insignificant) notes is finally the sharing of campaign EXP points also in level progression within the game. We will therefore finally be able to level up our weapons, increase our level, and obtain new camos even by playing the campaign, something that did not happen before. As you may have noticed, however, the scales are decidedly tipped towards the negative side of this new campaign, so we ask ourselves: does it make sense to continue all this? Call of Duty has had an enormous weight for many years only regarding multiplayer, so what's the point of continuing to spend resources on single-player if the results and what comes out of it are truly of dubious quality? We leave the answers to you, our opinion I think is quite clear.

Multiplayer is Linus's warm (short) blanket

Let's talk now about what's good, and fortunately, it's not little! Yes, because once again Black Ops 7 hits the mark perfectly and delivers a fun, adrenaline-fueled, and rich multiplayer. Players will find themselves catapulted into no less than 18 maps (and several more will arrive over time) across modes like Domination, Team Deathmatch, Moshpit, and many others. Perhaps the most fun is the Skirmish mode. Unlike the canonical ones already seen, this one is a 20 vs 20, in larger maps where adrenaline reigns supreme: when we start the skirmish, but also when redeploying in case of death, we use the provided wingsuit to move quickly to various areas of the map and always be ready in the center of the battle scene. Our alter ego in this mode will become increasingly powerful, unlocking new abilities and where the overclock system will allow the strengthening of one's equipment related to perks, killstreaks, and gadgets.

What we had already appreciated last year is confirmed as the added value of the COD brand, namely omnimovement. This is not only improved but also newly enriched with the wall-running mode, in full Prince of Persia style, we would dare to say. Thanks to this gem and other permitted movements, our soldier can literally save his skin even in truly critical situations, and surprise enemies with timing and customization based on the playstyle used. The immediacy that COD manages to convey with its gameplay is and remains something astonishing, which we would never dream of giving up, not only for the fun and lightheartedness itself, but also because it is now one of the best arrows the franchise has in its quiver. The weapons are well balanced, capable of conveying real sensations, especially from a sound perspective.

However, we already notice a clear imbalance towards certain firearms, which are very strong and lethal even now, and then destined to become the meta when the game merges with Warzone. These will remain instruments of death on the free-to-play until the usual update that will bring buffs and nerfs. Honestly, the reason for such choices still escapes us today, given that, by doing so, players will be led to always use the strongest weapons, limiting themselves to using those with the lowest possible TTK, at the expense of true customization of their armament. It's a real shame about the sound, which continues to be a now certified Achilles' heel, an abyss that seems impossible to remedy. Enemy footsteps are really only heard in the proximity of imminent death, which descends on the poor player without the slightest possibility of remedying it, or at least trying to avoid the inevitable.

When zombies save the party (and increase longevity)

We conclude our analysis with the last mode of Black Ops 7. Here too, we are very satisfied with what we have seen and what we have experienced. The meat put on the grill in this case, as in multiplayer mode, is not only abundant but also very succulent! First, we want to highlight the welcome return of the Survival mode. Here, in a contained environment, we will have to resist hordes of zombies for as long as possible, where our survival instinct will be severely tested, not only by the zombies that will increase in number but also by their increasingly aggressive instinct. We will have to be able to manage not only the ammunition at our disposal but also power-ups and the various abilities present. We can say that a tear fell at the return of this mode because we were there at the time of Black Ops 2 and 13 years later we are still here dismembering zombies as if there were no tomorrow!

In the classic mode "Ashes of the Damned" we will be called to find clues about what awaits us, in a series of rounds with a high challenge and dispersiveness, not for nothing it is "the biggest zombie mode ever created in the Black Ops series": try it to believe it. Here we will be assisted by an old anti-zombie pick-up, which in addition to transporting us around the areas, will soon become a way to get rid of the undead when the situation becomes critical.

The guided mode is certainly the most "relaxed" of the four available, where clear objectives and instructions will guide us to success. We conclude our analysis with the curse mode, probably the most difficult. Here we will have very weak weapons at the beginning, we will not have the map available and therefore exploration will be more difficult, moreover, through the activation of relics, we will obtain permanent debuffs to raise the challenge level, not only for the current game but also for subsequent ones. The experience will certainly be more challenging in most cases, but, without spoiling anything, we add that we could also receive rewards for our "sacrifices".