Beebom Score
Black Ops 7, or Call of Duty 23 (!), has been out for nearly two weeks at this point, and I’ve ingested enough of the hippity-hoppity, sliddery-slaughtery multiplayer offering to assess its quality. Treyarch’s latest release has endured possibly the worst reception of any game in the franchise, a portion of which is truly deserved. But if I’m speaking solely about the multiplayer component, Black Ops 7 lands more jabs than it misses, although it isn’t exactly swinging for the fences in the first place.
Zombies, on the other hand, does aim for the stars with the biggest round-based map in the game mode’s history, alongside the return of features that hardcore fans have long been clamoring for. Since I was too deep in the wormhole known as Nuketown 24×7, my colleague has graciously invested the hours required to put together a review of Ashes of the Damned and the accompanying Survival mode.
Campaign is its own beast, a ghastly one at that, and you can check out our thoughts on the co-op experience in our dedicated review. With all that housekeeping out of the way, let’s dig into Black Ops 7’s multiplayer and Zombies, both of which are much better than what you probably expect.
Combat Delivers a Rush, Vision Feels Like a Weak Batch
As far as non-tactical multiplayer shooters are concerned, Call of Duty’s gunplay remains best-in-class. This shouldn’t come as a surprise if you played Black Ops 6, which, despite all of its faults, felt nice and punchy in action. BO7 builds on that foundation with added refinement and polish, ensuring that nearly every weapon in its arsenal feels satisfying to wield.
Despite being set in the near future, the guns also seem grounded due to smart design choices that strike the perfect balance between sci-fi and realism. Weapons like the MXR-17 and the Carbon 57 exude proto-futuristic finesse thanks to transparent magazines, while the MPC-25 (a new iteration of BO2’s MSMC) and the M8A1 (another BO2 returnee) resemble firearms that have existed for years.
The ballistic soundscape gels nicely with the sharp design, meaning there’s sonic pleasure to be found in every pull of the trigger and every crank of the bolt. Naturally, these elements help in weapon differentiation, which is one of Black Ops 7’s strongest points.
Every weapon feels different in action, whether that’s due to fire rate, magazine style, or the effective projectile range. This aspect really stands out, especially when you compare it to a competitor like Battlefield 6, where the guns feel good to use, but it’s difficult to distinguish between firearms of the same class. Weapon feedback is also pretty solid, with the TTK being largely the same as BO6, if not a touch quicker.
Another familiar aspect of the gameplay is the returning omnimovement system, which allows Operators to sprint, slide, and dive in all four directions. In the spirit of innovation, Treyarch has implemented a new wall jump mechanic that lets you hop from one surface to another. While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with the mechanic, it does feel like a compromise, as the devs may have been hesitant to bring back the wall run in fear of community uproar.
I say this because most of the maps facilitate the verticality required for such a mechanic. You’ll find staggered walls that would enable a chained wall-run in Advanced Warfare, placed next to an elevated platform of some sort. There’s an obvious movement combination to be pulled off here, which you can still execute via the wall jump but without it feeling nearly as fun.
Taking into context the game’s setting and map design, I get the sense that this multiplayer wants to be more advanced (get it?). It wants the wall runs and the jet packs, and frankly, I want them too. The brutal truth is that we aren’t getting a Call of Duty like Black Ops 7 for a solid few years – Battlefield 6’s success, coupled with the community’s demand for Modern Warfare-esque realism, has made sure of that. So, if this is the final outing of a purely arcade COD for the foreseeable future, I would’ve preferred if Treyarch went all out.
With its current, middle-of-the-line focus, Black Ops 7’s gameplay is perfectly enjoyable. It has something to offer for both the cracked stick-shifters who shuffle and slide cancel at any given opportunity, and the casual audience that just wants a dose of dopamine and a sense of progression. The much-needed introduction of non-SBMM and non-disbanding lobbies also helps reinforce that central requirement of ‘fun.’
But with all that said, this IP and these maps deserved a bolder approach, which leaves me feeling that Black Ops 7’s gameplay is, in some ways, a missed opportunity.
Maps That Carry the Fun Without Breaking a Sweat
Maps make or break multiplayer experiences, and fortunately, this is a department Black Ops 7 excels in. Unlike its predecessor, whose combat arenas looked dull and uninspired, BO7’s slate of 16 6v6 launch maps are all brimming with personality. From the jump, your senses will be embraced by their sheer vibrance, but not in that jarring color vomit fashion.
The visual palettes are fine-tuned to go along with each map’s setting. Toshin, which takes place in a narrow Japanese shopping district, is decked out with neon signage, whose reflections bounce off the wet asphalt. Homestead is a cozy slice of comfort in the harsh Alaskan wilderness, illustrated through different hues of blue and blankets of snow, with the breathtaking Northern Lights dancing in the backdrop. Flagship is another standout due to how industrial and claustrophobic it feels, where you’ll literally engage in fast-paced duels with sparks flying about almost everywhere.
I could draw similar descriptions of the entire roster because they’ve clearly received a ton of care and thought. Of course, function is paramount, so it’s a good thing that most of these maps have a sublime flow. For instance, Cortex, which I fell in love with during the beta, is an excellent showcase of how strong Black Ops 7’s three-lane layouts are. Its core combat zones are interconnected organically, meaning you’ll be fighting in a sterile containment facility one second, and walking cautiously atop a skyline in the next, without the switch-up seeming awkward.
Another one of my favorites is Den, which is on the verge of becoming an S-tier Call of Duty map on my list. It is just so rich in aesthetic thanks to the feudal Japanese architecture, and the devs make full use of the theme by letting you hop across broken rooftops like you’re playing Sekiro, or wander around the incredibly stylized conference room. The flow is again sublime, due to an uncomplicated layout that becomes familiar after just a couple of matches.
Besides the Forge and Imprint, I really enjoyed my time on all these maps, and voting for one of them in the selection screen genuinely feels like an engaging decision rather than a formality, as it did in BO6. The best part is that there’s more to come, a lot more, in fact. Black Ops 7 has been billed as the “biggest Black Ops ever,” and true to that promise, Treyarch is throwing the kitchen sink at it when it comes to content.
Season 1 alone brings six new maps to the game, including a re-remake of Fringe (since it was reimagined for BO6) as well as the return of Standoff. Future updates are likely to be just as packed, and if the map design remains this strong, they’ll also be just as fun.
To sum things up, solid gameplay and remarkable maps all but ensure that Black Ops 7’s multiplayer is the best Call of Duty has been since Black Ops Cold War. The game certainly doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but with tuning so precise, it’s hard not to enjoy the ride.
Black Ops 7 Zombies Review
(Words by Rishabh Sabarwal)
The Psych-Gas Antidote We Deserve After “That” Campaign
Alright, time to be real now. Aryan took you through the multiplayer side of Black Ops 7, which actually “saves” the entire game, literally. But Zombies, it is a whole other animal, and I’ve tamed it over the years, all with a Cymbal Monkey and an Aether Shroud. If the co-op campaign was a psych-gas hallucination gone horribly wrong, a paranoid, sweating fever dream that leaves you questioning your sanity, then Zombies is the lucid, euphoric release you need to stabilize. It is the chill, colorful aftermath where the headaches fade, replaced by the mindless joy of blowing sh*t up.
This year’s offering, anchored by the massive map Ashes of the Damned, is a chaotic masterpiece of arcade nonsense. It is clearly spiritually indebted to Black Ops 2’s infamous Tranzit, but, miraculously, it lacks the volcanic fog and rage-inducing lava that made its predecessor a punishment rather than a game.
However, while it fixes the overall environment, “Ashes” is a navigational nightmare. It is vast, unintuitive, and hostile to newcomers. The layout is less a map and more a Rorschach test, filled with esoteric paths that make accessibility a distant dream. I spent my first few hours wandering aimlessly, feeling like a tourist in hell without a guidebook.
But then it started to grow on me, and this is where the GobbleGums come in; my sugary, whimsical saviors. I will freely admit to being a shameless abuser of these gumballs. When the map design fights me, I fight back with confectionery cheat codes. Why pray to the RNG gods when Wonderbar! lets me get a Ray Gun straight out of the Mystery Box? It’s a “pay-to-win” dopamine hit, a goofy power trip that lets me bypass the grind and get straight to the slaughter. The Whimsical Gobble Gums are what I believe would be an ‘Adam Sandler’ creation. I popped an Indigestion once, and it made every killed zombie fart near me, creating a toxic gas cloud while I could hear others scream. I mean…what?!
Wannabe Zombie Killers Are a Real Buzzkill
The only buzzkill at this party is the randoms. Public lobbies are a roulette wheel of incompetence, currently infested with XP farmers. These aren’t teammates; they are camouflaged parasites. You’ll be sweating to solve a complex Easter Egg step involving a severed foot, and there’s “OhioCrasher” in the corner, mindlessly training zombies in a glitch spot to level up his pistol, completely ignoring the objective. They turn a cooperative shooter into a babysitting simulator.
Yet, despite the lobotomized teammates and the labyrinthine map, Black Ops 7 Zombies is an infectious ride that you’ll be hooked to. It’s a flawed, sugar-rushed mess, but it’s the exact kind of mindless, high-octane therapy required after suffering through that disaster of a campaign.
From a really deep Ashes of the Damned quest, which for the death of me I haven’t been able to fully complete even in over 15 public lobbies, to Survival round-based action, Zombies actually makes you feel like you’re playing a Call of Duty game. While the co-op campaign felt otherwise, this is the real campaign you should be focusing on. With one more map coming in Season 1 with newer Easter Eggs, I can confidently claim that the future of Zombies in Black Ops 7 is mighty bright, and me and my Perkaholic Gobble Gum will be ready for more.
Performance is Precisely What You’d Expect From a Call of Duty
If there’s one department that Call of Duty never strikes out in, it’s performance. Starting with 2020’s Cold War, every entry in the franchise has supported two console generations. For most publishers, this would be an optimization nightmare, but for Activision, it’s standard practice. This means that Black Ops 7 runs great across all platforms, delivering buttery-smooth gameplay on machines released as far back as 2013.
My gameplay sessions were powered by the relatively humble Xbox Series S, and Rishabh’s Zombies ran on a PS5. The compact go-getter ran the game effortlessly at a rock-solid 60 FPS on both consoles, while outputting visuals that were pleasing to look at. Based on everything I’ve seen, the same goes for every current-gen platform. And given the franchise’s consistency, I’d wager that Activision could get the game running smoothly on Wii if they wanted to.
In terms of graphical fidelity, BO7 isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, and it basically looks like a sharper, more colorful version of Black Ops 6. It still looks good, mind you, but it’s not going to blow your socks off through sheer visual spectacle like a Battlefield 6 or an Arc Raiders. The real graphical overhaul will likely come next year, when Infinity Ward rolls out what is likely to be the fourth entry in their Modern Warfare reboot. Until then, Black Ops 7 offers ample visual flourish to keep your senses engaged.
Verdict: COD’s Signature Modes Fighting to Keep the Franchise Breathing
Black Ops 7 is a frustrating game to summarize, because the parts that matter most land far better than the discourse around it suggests. The multiplayer doesn’t reinvent a single wheel, but every spoke on that wheel has been polished to a shine.
The gunplay is as crisp as ever, the maps are an absolute home run, and the overall flow of matches is seriously addictive. It’s just a shame that Treyarch stopped one step short of going fully futuristic, especially since the maps practically beg for more adventurous movement. That said, what is here is undeniably fun, and that fun is consistent.
Zombies, meanwhile, comes crashing through the door dressed like the antidote to everything the campaign got wrong. Ashes of the Damned is massive, ambitious, and hostile until it finally clicks, at which point it becomes the kind of arcade mayhem the mode built its legacy on. The GobbleGums return as delightfully unbalanced equalizers, the Easter Egg hunt is as ludicrous and chaotic as you’d expect, and even the XP farmers can’t fully diminish its quality. With more round-based maps coming in future seasons, Zombies will likely end up being the MVP of Black Ops 7.
Ultimately, Black Ops 7 is far better than the internet has given it credit for. It’s the best the series has felt since Cold War, and while it plays things safer than I’d like, the end result is a great Call of Duty game, and possibly the last one of its kind for a long, long while.
