- Following the release of Black Ops 7, Call of Duty HQ on Steam managed to hit a peak player count of only 88,000 players.
- In comparison, Black Ops 6's release saw COD HQ's spike to around 315,000 players.
- BO7's numbers pale in comparison to Battlefield 6, which has held firm at 300,000 Steam a month on from its release.
After a lengthy promotional cycle, Call of Duty Black Ops 7 has arrived in the face of stiff competition from Battlefield 6 and even Embark’s Arc Raiders. But unlike other CoD releases, Black Ops 7 has failed to move the needle entirely when it comes to player counts, having amassed fewer day one users than Battlefield 6’s current population of active users.
No matter how half-baked its annual releases can feel, Call of Duty games always manage to get by in the end. While active users for recent entries such as Black Ops 6 and Modern Warfare III hemorrhaged over time, both titles remained commercial successes, which is why analysts expected Black Ops 7 to follow suit. However, the game’s day one player counts on Steam are far from encouraging and paint a dire picture of Treyarch’s latest title.
Black Ops 7 Has Fewer Players on Day One Than Battlefield 6 Does a Month Later
According to Steam Charts, Black Ops 7’s player count peaked at just shy of 88,000 players on day one. In comparison, 2024’s Black Ops 6 saw the Call of Duty HQ app hit a peak of 315,000 users. This gulf between player counts speaks volumes about the general sentiment regarding BO7. And before you make the Game Pass argument, BO6 was also available day one on the service, yet it managed to lose far fewer Steam users than Black Ops 7 has.
To make matters worse, it looks like a majority of its Steam playerbase has migrated to Battlefield 6. EA’s first-person shooter famously broke its own peak player count on day one by amassing over 747,000 users, and also shattered Call of Duty’s all-time peak in the process. The game is currently holding firm at around 300k concurrent players on Steam, which is nearly four times bigger than its rival.
With all that being said, the actual concurrent player figure for BO7 on PC will likely be significantly higher once you factor in Game Pass and Battle.net users. However, this doesn’t change the fact that Black Ops 7 has suffered the worst Steam launch of any Call of Duty game when it comes to this metric.
Initial impressions around the game have been pretty mixed as well, with its co-op campaign drawing plenty of criticism from players online. It’ll be interesting to see if the sales charts are kinder on Call of Duty Black Ops 7 than its critical reception.
