Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (Multiplayer)

Now, it's not exactly as if Call of Duty's multiplayer throne is under direct attack, and it has always been easier to argue that DICE's special Battlefield formula should offer a specially designed competitive experience to what Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer offer annually. These experiences are ultimately different, each with their own unique characteristics, rules, and frameworks.

That said, there is more general competition among multiplayer shooters than ever before, and even though subgenres coexist effortlessly, there is always the indisputable problem of time - what do you have time to give it your all? Among ARC Raiders, Battlefield 6, Escape from Tarkov, Overwatch 2, and all the other titles, Call of Duty still has to work hard to maintain its place among players, and I would argue that even though there are changes to be found at the core of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's multiplayer suite this time around, I'm not sure they actually improve the experience. I say this after many hours of gameplay spread over both the launch period and the game's beta.

Much of what you log in to experience today is the same as before, and by that I mean regular modes such as Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, and Search & Destroy. These are played across around 16 maps (from what I can see), a few of which are remasters of old classics, such as the iconic Hijacked from Black Ops 2. They are classics for a reason, that's clear; Hijacked, Express, and Raid are relics from another era, and still hold up well today. The selection of new maps does not leave quite as strong an impression.

They are small, almost claustrophobic most of the time, and although they usually offer a little more depth than the classic three-lane structure, their limited size, constantly fluctuating and changing spawn points, and a general game tempo that feels higher than ever before, make classic multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 feels more twitchy than ever.

That is essentially the core of this separate multiplayer review. No matter what we tackle, whether it's TTK, TTD, Omnimovement, weapon physics, and especially grenades, Black Ops 7 feels rather bizarrely calibrated. Both myself and my colleague Ben agreed a month ago that the pace has been ramped up to a level where the game almost shatters under its breakneck speed, and we are truly back to the days where you can spawn three times in a row in the middle of enemy fire, and where death occurs so quickly that you often can't really gain any strategic advantage from a kill, as you simply don't know what's going on.

Before you accuse me of being a grumpy old man who last played an A-game in Modern Warfare II, I actually believe that Activision's COD studios struck this more delicate balance not too long ago. Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare II, and even Black Ops Cold War, demonstrated a slightly heavier but still responsive gameplay profile, but here everything from skill usage, grenade damage, vaulting and slides is so tuned towards speed and twitchy precision that it almost looks comical when you're in the heat of battle.

You can always excuse and explain away this kind of criticism with an "L" on your forehead and a "git good" comment thrown off the cuff, and it's not entirely unjustified. However, I have played every year's Call of Duty on an ongoing basis and have a pretty good grasp on arena-based multiplayer shooters in general, and I was shocked to see these tuning changes in practice on completely ordinary multiplayer maps. Explosions galore, sweaty double-jump slides with instant headshots, and a surprising lack of visual clarity from the user interface and effects on the screen, which bathe the screen in visual noise from time-to-time. In other words, Call of Duty multiplayer has always been noisy, but in my opinion, never as much as now.

This is not a disaster, far from it. Of course, it's always the case that large parts of the overall framework are spot on, as one can continue to expect. Gunsmith feels fair and correctly calibrated, despite a few frame rate dips, the game looks decent, and there's nothing to complain about in terms of sound design, callouts, or music. All the basics you would expect from such a suite are delivered.

But that can't really distract from the fact that, for me personally, Black Ops 7 doesn't really suit my preferences, and even with extended time spent with Gunsmith, and in the company of the respectable list of maps, the game feels a little too kinetic, a little too Pac-Man-labyrinth-like, and instead of engaging with the exciting layouts of the individual maps, you just run headlong in one direction because your instinct simply expects a one shot from an almost impossible angle - always.

This is remedied somewhat by a 20v20 Skirmish mode, which introduces some Warzone elements, such as Armour Plates. This opens up more opportunistic play styles and a little more diligent use of positioning and strategy, even though the same skill-based core is maintained. It's not that much happens here, nor is it a significant upgrade from previous versions, but it's a nice break that gives you a little more breathing room than the comically frantic regular modes.

The only truly new mode here seems to be Overload, where you basically just have to escort an object from a neutral spawn point to one of two enemy zones. It's a kind of capture the flag, but where the random spawns, and thus changing spawn points for you and the enemy, keep everyone on their toes a little more.

But maybe you can sense it, folks; Black Ops 7 might be just what you've been looking for. Maybe the frantic pace will appeal to you after the much more heavy-handed alternatives from competitors on the market, maybe the chaos will take shape as a challenge, an Everest that you and your friends must climb. Fair enough. For me, though? I think this feels miscalibrated, and here's why. This multiplayer suite sacrifices a lot in pursuit of that super-responsive, twitchy gameplay feel, from deeper map design to a real sense of weight and strategic depth. Nothing is broken here, and you will probably see many different critical conclusions from the media and fans on Reddit and Steam. For me, however, this is a miss on some very basic parameters.