Threads
- The Black Ops 7 campaign is a complete disaster on every level possible.
- It wastes returning characters like Raul Menendez, Frank Woods, and Alex Mason.
- The gameplay also lacks the flair of past Call of Duty campaigns, presenting bland missions one after another.
Black Ops 7 is officially out in the wild, but things are not looking great for Activision after a record-breaking release last year. Even before release, the excitement for Call of Duty’s latest entry seemed unusually low compared to the likes of Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders, and looking at the campaign, it’s not difficult to understand why.
Having finished the Black Ops 7 campaign recently, I don’t really know what to say about the series’ future. Truth be told, my expectations were already low going into the series’ latest single-player offering, and it was largely the connection to the Black Ops 2 narrative that pulled me in to begin with.
Ultimately, I feel like Black Ops has become a parody of its former self, at least in the campaign department.
Why it matters: The Black Ops series was famous for its mind-bending and psychological campaigns that retained the grounded elements from Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare series. Unfortunately, the series’ latest entry lacks both the writing nuance and gameplay charm of past Black Ops titles.
Hallucinations And More Hallucinations
No Black Ops story would be complete without some kind of psychological twist at play.
In this regard, Black Ops 7 follows its predecessors closely, but where the original Black Ops presented an excellent blend of twists and turns carefully crafted to keep players on the edge of their seats after each new reveal, Black Ops 7 treats its psychological elements as nothing more than gameplay gimmicks.
This problem was already apparent in Black Ops 6 when the game devolved into a weird mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements at certain points, but Black Ops 7 goes all-in on this direction.
I can’t explain how awkward it felt to fight zombies in the campaign one after another. Just as I was beginning to come to terms with the story’s overall tone, it threw a zombified Frank Woods boss fight at me.
Later on, Harper, another returning character from Black Ops 2, turned into a giant zombie boss akin to a raid boss from Destiny. If this doesn’t make it clear that the Black Ops IP has run its course, I don’t know what will.
Gone is the incredible storytelling from the original Black Ops, replaced by a series of gimmicks. Although the original campaign always made it clear that Alex Mason was hallucinating to an extent, within the espionage-style campaign was woven an element of mystery that slowly unraveled throughout the course of the story.
This sense of the unknown was what made Alex Mason’s story so memorable, and characters like Reznov and Hudson added a layer of depth to the experience that Black Ops 7 simply can’t match. On the contrary, Black Ops 7 relies on hallucinations so much that the psychological part of the experience quickly loses its appeal.
Wasting Characters And The Black Ops 2 Legacy
Black Ops 7 sees several returning characters from Black Ops 2, and how Call of Duty’s latest entry treats these characters is truly appalling.
For starters, Raul Menendez, whom I consider one of Call of Duty’s best villains ever, is reduced to nothing more than a propaganda piece in this campaign. In fact, we fight a zombified Raul Menendez as part of a hallucination sequence, showcasing just how low the series has fallen.
This version of Menendez completely lacks the intricacies that made his character so interesting in 2012. Instead, we get to see him teleporting all around the battlefield during a wacky boss fight while hurling giant machetes at him, this being a comically poor attempt at referencing Menendez’s intense backstory from Black Ops 2, where he sliced foes with a machete in a fit of rage and eventually lost his sister.
Later, the game wastes Frank Woods in a similar manner and retreads part of his flashbacks from Black Ops 2, going over how he was manipulated into killing Alex Mason. To nobody’s surprise, this version of the reveal completely lacks the emotional punch expected of such a pivotal moment.
Even David Mason’s character seems to have regressed in the 10 years since Black Ops 2, somehow struggling to come to terms with events already resolved a decade ago.
Unification of Campaign, Multiplayer, And Zombies
Perhaps the final nail in this campaign’s coffin is the fact that it plays all too much like the other parts of Call of Duty. The last things I want to see in a Call of Duty campaign are XP pop-ups and zombies, but here we are.
As mentioned earlier, the game presents giant boss fights that would be far more appropriate in zombies. If this wasn’t bad enough, multiplayer maps from 2012, like Hijacked, are rehashed as locations for campaign missions.
Somehow, Black Ops 7 also foregoes Call of Duty’s signature, over-the-top action set-pieces. I get that these sequences aren’t the most interesting after 15 years, but they are still vital to the series’ overall identity and genuinely enjoyable when done right. For some reason, Black Ops 7 trades this part of the campaign for uninspired shooting galleries and open-world-style missions.
To highlight just how bad the situation is, Black Ops 7’s co-op features conflict with the solo campaign experience. When played offline, the campaign fails to spawn in NPC companions onto the battlefield, all while they carry out conversations like they are right next to the player.
One could say that this element furthers the themes of hallucination and doubt in Black Ops 7’s campaign, but I don’t think the game’s writing deserves enough credit to look at this as anything but a technical problem.
In the aftermath, Black Ops 7’s campaign makes it clear that Activision’s teams are out of ideas. Now, more than ever, it’s clear that the developers are at their limits, and franchise fatigue has set in.
If the Modern Warfare 3 campaign was downright bad, and Black Ops 3’s story was a jumbled mess of interesting sci-fi ideas, Black Ops 7 is a new low for the series that combines the worst parts of the two.
In my opinion, it’s finally time to lay the Black Ops brand to rest. The series has had its ups and downs, but Treyarch should finally move on to something new and fresh, even if it means leaving behind the memorable stories and characters that we all love and grew up with.
Thank you! Please share your positive feedback. 🔋
How could we improve this post? Please Help us. 😔
[Senior News Reporter]
Avinash is currently pursuing a Business degree in Australia. For more than 5 years, he has been working as a gaming journalist, utilizing his writing skills and love for gaming to report on the latest updates in the industry. Avinash loves to play action games like Devil May Cry and has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as IGN, GamesRadar, GameRant, Dualshockers, CBR, and Gamespot.
Join Our Community
