I would consider myself a fan of Call of Duty. Hearing about it growing up, I was always very interested in it, purely because of the gaming phenomenon that it promised to be. It is known as one of the most basic and surface-level gaming franchises due to its popularity and generally quite simple concept, but there is a reason it is so popular and so profitable. Following on from the first Halo game in 2001, Call of Duty as a franchise started 22 years ago in 2003 and where Halo succeeded in a sci-fi power fantasy, it brought forward a more gritty and realistic model of competitive multiplayer warfare. I watched mates play this growing up and even my dad who does not play many games other than potentially FIFA. The ingrained formula of grinding the game as much as possible, trying to get to the next experience level, and doing it all again when getting to the point of prestige. There was never anything tangible to gain by doing this, it just gave you a nice shiny badge next to your name and that was more than enough for people. To have the bragging rights at school or work that you achieved Master prestige rank, only to be met with bitter remarks of ‘you sweat’ or ‘go outside’, that was a formative part of the culture around this game franchise. In 2025, the franchise is simply not the same as those roots that it grew from and has become a very different gaming behemoth for all the wrong reasons. Its culture has been stripped, it has become essentially a meme, a complete and utter joke compared to what it was. By this, I do not fully mean the gameplay fundamentals, because that is largely fun. But everything surrounding the franchise today is what is wrong with the Triple A gaming industry. This is in part a review of Black Ops 7, but also an examination of what has gone wrong for this franchise, and how it has completely lost its original identity.

You can first see the problem with Black Ops 7 from its title; there are simply too many, and as a result, they are stuck for ideas. The original Black Ops is seen as one of the most popular games in the franchise, and that is for good reason. It certainly started the more arcade-ish feel of the franchise, but it still kept in line as a military shooter, full of grit and horror. The campaign is also seen as one of the best campaigns in franchise history because of its boldness to take on real-life events and spin them into a massive conspiracy. Dealing with the dicey climate of Cold War impact and even delving into the darkest corners of US history, like the despicable MK Ultra, all of this is alien to what we have in today’s franchise. Its downward spiral started with my first proper Call of Duty game: Black Ops 3, which is named as one of the franchise’s worst campaigns to date. Building on the jetpack-infused gameplay of Advanced Warfare, it furthered a more futuristic approach to the story and world, and it was worse off for it. Starting to offer more kooky ideas to hide that creative bankruptcy, when it comes to making interesting military storylines, this was just a bit too much nonsense for people. If that was not evidence enough, Black Ops 4 did not even have a campaign, so they really had no idea where to go! Black Ops Cold War and Black Ops 6 did go back to those military roots, but they were seen as safe and generally quite uninnovative campaigns that felt like they were there just to please players. After all, the Modern Warfare side of the franchise was nailing its more tactile military thrillers, and Black Ops was kind of letting the side down. Modern Warfare‘s 2019 reboot has sparked a lot of mixed discussion surrounding the multiplayer, but the campaign is seen as a true highlight, resetting the status quo and making the franchise interesting and gritty again. But its third installment was a frankly awful campaign, with no depth, boring gameplay, and spiteful brevity. Unfortunately, Black Ops 7 has followed a similar path, but somehow made things even worse. You have probably seen the clips online by now, but in case you haven’t, just look at what we are dealing with now:

Words cannot quite express how silly this is. If you had shown somebody who has played this franchise from its conception this monstrosity, they might have a stroke! To clarify the context (although I am barely sure myself), this is part of some hallucination sequences, of which there are many. Even in the context of hallucinogenic agents and dream sequences, this is still just insanity for a franchise that found its footing in gritty military thrillers. It does not help that the story that ties it together is complete nonsense, too, basically just trying to one-up itself constantly with these mental set-piece examples. When I first heard that this entry to the franchise was going to delve into the human psyche with its plot, I think that was the point where I checked out, even before release. It is one thing to deal with very real hallucinogens and another to have a boss fight like this, or be able to summon a giant throwing knife from the sky. You have heard this campaign is bad already. I am not going to tell you any different. But the main thing here is just as I have titled this article, a loss of identity and what made this franchise what it is.

If, like me, the campaigns for Call of Duty have never been the main draw anyway, you may be curious to see how the multiplayer and zombies modes are. Well, as I said in the introduction, the gameplay fundamentals are good and solid as they always have been. It feels exceptional to shoot yourself out of high-pressure situations, whether that be escaping a point where the enemy is overwhelming you, or you are taking the fight directly to the enemy, diving about and catching them off guard. The omni-movement system that Black Ops 6 brought about is genuinely quite fun, and even if it may be annoying that someone has dived onto the floor and shot your toes to kill you, it is good fun whilst also being suitably realistic. In terms of new stuff that Black Ops 7 has added, they have finally found a decent substitute for the jetpacks in older games. Here, you can essentially do a little wall jump that lets you reach slightly higher ledges or can whip you around a corner. It is immensely satisfying to pull off and works really well, forming a nice middle ground between the more realistic grounded Call of Duty games and some of the futuristic approaches. Offering a nice bit of optional finesse and fluidity, rather than building the game around a jetpack, for example, is a much better idea, and this will definitely please the extreme audiences of realism purists and those who rave about movement being the most important cornerstone of Call of Duty gameplay. Actual multiplayer progression is as good as it can be, keeping the prestige model that the older games were so famed for. Weapons come in a wide variety, all types feeling different from one another, and some within the same type being complete powerhouses that you must capitalise on. There is a gun for every playstyle, and that is exactly how it should be, with a good amount of balance and tuning to make sure nobody is too favoured. Zombies mode has not exactly had much innovation, but for those who like it, they will be satisfied, and the same can generally be said of the multiplayer offering.

So, with a rubbish campaign, a decent Zombies offering, and a pretty fun multiplayer, this shows that this game is a mixed bag that is genuinely a hardship to review and come to a proper conclusion. But when thinking about this game, I cannot help but look down on it, and that is purely down to why I have titled this article as I have. Black Ops 7 is straying very far from what Call of Duty used to be, and that goes for the franchise as a whole rather than just this game in isolation. When I watched people play Call of Duty as a kid, I could see its grittiness and its maturity. I could understand why my parents would not let me play it to an extent, because it was brutal, and when you look back to the greats of World at War, or Modern Warfare 2, you can see why the franchise was so notorious. However, looking back on it, it makes so much sense that Black Ops 3 was the first proper one that I played a lot of. It was that point of collapse where things started to lose their visceral nature and their maturity. That is not just because of the jetpacks, because even Advanced Warfare had a bit of that grit still within it, amongst its more arcade feel. Black Ops 3 is where this 18-rated franchise slowly started to appeal to those younger than its age rating, and the lack of maturity falls in line with that. You look at the game today, and you see licensed cartoon characters running around with main characters from the original Black Ops, and you cannot help but sigh. That unspoken truth is that the main players of this adult franchise had a lot of kids playing it has become very much at the forefront of its new identity, trying its best to rope in kids with its collaborations and skins as a result. Fortnite is the main reason this has happened, and it is embarrassing that this adult franchise feels so threatened by a kids’ game that it needs to ape it, somehow not realising its success was built on being for adults that wanted a game that felt more their age.

Black Ops 7 is a worrying sign for the gaming industry, and even if I might enjoy the multiplayer, I just cannot endorse what this franchise stands for anymore. It certainly does not help that it has so many awful warning signs just by its very existence. For example, there has been a lot of controversy about it due to its obvious use of generative AI to create emblems, and I do not even need to tell you about how anti-art and lazy that is. The Call of Duty hub app, where each game is downloaded into is terrible too, automatically downloading every other Call of Duty featured in that app when you try to download or update any of them; tremendously helpful. The whole thing reeks of laziness and a lack of creativity that I simply cannot endorse. It may be fun to play at points, but everything else surrounding it really lets it down. The fact of the matter is, this franchise does not feel like it will ever be the same again, and if recent entries did not settle this identity crisis fully, Black Ops 7 certainly does.

This is a slightly different style of review that I have been pondering for a while, so I would appreciate any feedback!