My first night with Black Ops 7 went as well as expected. After scoping out the first few missions of the bizarre co-op campaign with friends, we hopped into 6v6 multiplayer, making a point to stick to the "open" playlists with "minimal" skill-based matchmaking.

As I feared after the open beta, Black Ops 7 is shaping up to be another weak year for Call of Duty multiplayer, shining a light on the series' streak of diminishing returns. Much like Modern Warfare 3 (2023) to Modern Warfare 2 (2022), Blops 7 is very much an expensive expansion for Blops 6: Guns now have sci-fi greebling and Titanfall angles, but behave the same as last year. Its big movement "innovation," the wall bounce, is barely there. Maps are plentiful and pretty, but remain in a structural rut so predictable in 2025 that

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