Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a 2025 first-person shooter video game co-developed by Treyarch and Raven Software and published by Activision. It is the twenty-second main installment of the Call of Duty series and is the eighth entry in the Black Ops sub-series, following Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Set in 2035, Black Ops 7 story—playable in co-op or single-player—follows a JSOC unit led by David Mason as they investigate the apparent return of deceased terrorist Raul Menendez. As with previous Call of Duty titles, the game also includes a multiplayer component and the cooperative round-based Zombies mode.
Development on Black Ops 7 took place concurrently with the production of Black Ops 6, with both games being green-lit at the same time. Marketing for the title began in June 2025 with the release of a cinematic trailer during the 2025 Xbox Games Showcase event; a full reveal debuted on August 19, at Gamescom. Black Ops 7 was released on November 14, 2025, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Critics praised the multiplayer and Zombies modes, but were mixed on the co-op campaign. Player reception was negative, and the game was the subject of review bombing on Metacritic, with criticism for the campaign and the use of generative artificial intelligence for in-game assets.
Gameplay
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7—like its predecessor, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 —is a first-person shooter. Depending on the game mode selected, players use near-future military equipment, such as weapons, "field upgrades", and "scorestreaks", to combat AI opponents, other human players, or undead creatures. Players can traverse a level/map omnidirectionally, and can perform "wall jumps" off of select walls; in a change from Black Ops 6, the "Tactical Sprint" ability, which grants a limited boost of speed allowing faster movement than the base sprint, has been removed from the core movement, but is accessible as an in-game perk.Black Ops 7 features three main game modes: a co-op/single-player campaign, a multiplayer component and the cooperative round-based Zombies mode. Playable with up to four players, the campaign sees players take control of a JSOC unit as they undertake a covert operation in the Mediterranean city of Avalon. The campaign features 11 total missions; completing all missions unlocks access to the "Endgame" mode, which puts up to 32 players in Avalon and tasks them with completing a series of objectives within a strict time limit. Players can bring a custom loadout with them into Endgame, and can equip their selected character with a major and minor ability to enhance their capabilities before starting each match, but if they die, they lose access to their gear; a skill tree is also available to progress in-match, which grants additional buffs, and can be retained between successful exfiltrations.
The multiplayer component puts two teams of six —"JSOC" and "The Guild"—against each other across a wide selection of game modes, such as Team Deathmatch, Domination, Hardpoint, and Overload; an exception to this is "Skirmish", an objective-based mode that allows for 20v20 combat on two dedicated maps. Like previous Call of Duty titles, player performance is tracked with experience points, which is earned by killing enemy players, completing objectives, or finishing challenges; XP can also be earned in the campaign and Zombies modes. As players level up, they gain access to various loadout items, including new weapons, pieces of equipment, and perks, the latter of which are split into three "combat specialties"—"Enforcer", "Recon", and "Strategist"—that are activated when selecting three perks of the same specialty; new to Black Ops 7 are "hybrid combat specialties", which grant buffs when mixing perks from two different combat specialties. Players can also apply additional abilities to their selection of lethal and tactical equipment, scorestreaks, and field upgrades via the "Overclock" upgrade system. Once players reach level 55, they can choose to enter the "Prestige" ranking system, which resets their progress back to level 1 but grants a set of additional rewards; this process can be done up to ten times. Fully leveled up weapons can also be Prestiged, which unlocks a series of cosmetic items, such as weapon camos and charms, but re-locks all available attachments.
In Zombies, players fight endless hordes of the undead, which increase in number and difficulty with every completed round, across two maps, which continue the mode's storyline immediately following Black Ops 6 Zombies. The standard Zombies experience shares several gameplay features with Black Ops 6 Zombies: players manage two primary currencies, "Essence" and "Salvage", which are used to unlock access to new parts of the maps, acquire weapon upgrades and ammo modifications, craft pieces of lethal and tactical equipment, and to purchase additional player upgrades, including "Perk-a-Colas" and armor vests; players can also apply minor and major enhancements to perks, field upgrades and ammo mods via the "Augments" system and consume "GobbleGums"—single-use items that grant various in-game effects. Black Ops 6 "Directed" mode also returns, allowing players to complete a map's main quest with in-game assistance. Supplementing Black Ops 7 standard and Directed modes are three new game modes: "Survival", "Dead Ops Arcade 4", and "Cursed". Survival tasks players with surviving for as long as possible on small sections of the core maps. Dead Ops Arcade 4 is a new iteration of the standalone top-down shooter included in several previous Black Ops titles. Cursed is an advanced version of Zombies, featuring additional difficulty modifiers called "Relics" and some legacy elements from older Call of Duty games, such as the absence of loadout weapons and the player's mini-map, and a "classic point system" inspired by Call of Duty: Black Ops III.
Plot
Campaign
In June 2035, ten years after JSOC Commander David "Section" Mason stopped a plot by the terrorist organization "Cordis Die" to hijack the United States drone fleet and neutralized its leader, Raul Menendez, a video of Menendez surfaces online, which claims the 2025 attacks were "just the beginning" and that he plans to take his next steps in three days; in response, "the Guild"—a tech giant led by its CEO, Emma Kagan —vows to defend humanity. Doubting their true intentions, Colonel Troy Marshall deploys David and his unit, "Specter One", which comprises fellow operatives Mike Harper, Eric Samuels, and Leilani "50/50" Tupuola, to the Mediterranean city of Avalon, where the Guild is based, to investigate the matter. After infiltrating a laboratory, Specter One is ambushed and exposed to a hallucinogenic toxin, causing them to experience vivid hallucinations; the team's survival is enabled by their cybernetic enhancements to their brains and bodies. As Specter One attempts to escape the facility, they become trapped in a vision of Nicaragua, where David confronts an apparition of Menendez. During their escape, Specter One recovers a quantum computer drive, then destroys the laboratory, causing the toxin to escape containment, contaminating Avalon and forcing a mass evacuation of its civilians.Seeking intel on the toxin, the team meets with JSOC operative Chloe "Karma" Lynch, who helps them track down an insider still in Avalon. The team experiences another hallucination, which shows them David's deceased mentor Frank Woods, who expresses emotional trauma from his imprisonment and torture by Menendez in Angola, as well as his accidental killing of David's father, Alex Mason, culminating in a battle against a hallucination of Woods, corrupted into a gigantic plant monster. After defeating it, David forgives Woods for his mistake, and Woods similarly encourages David to heal from his past traumas. Recovering from the hallucination, Specter One learns from the insider that the toxin is called "the Cradle"; Marshall and Karma also inform them that the Menendez video was doctored using deepfake technology by the Guild. Needing a quantum computer to analyze the rest of the drive's data, Specter One captures a server farm to find one, while Marshall sends JSOC unit "Specter Two", led by Slade "Razor" Barrick, to a Guild facility in Tokyo to access it. Razor sends what appears to be a decryption key for the drive, but it instead deletes most of the remaining data, revealing that he was a double agent for the Guild.
Specter One experiences further shared hallucinations, based on each member's past traumas. After waking up back in Avalon, they move to capture Dr. Gideon Falkner, a Guild scientist researching the Cradle's effects on the team's cybernetics. He sends them to another Guild building, "the Sanctum", where Kagan ambushes them. Specter One faces a hallucination of Alex, initially depicted as a cruel and controlling warden of Vorkuta, but are able to escape after restoring David and Alex's positive memories. The team learns that Kagan plans to use the Cradle to cause widespread terror, while blaming the fake Menendez and profiting by posing the Guild as heroes. As they attempt to stop Kagan from loading the shipments at Avalon's docks, she sends Razor to confront them, but they manage to kill him. Marshall directs Specter One to a mining rig off the coast of Avalon, where the shipments appear to originate from. Upon investigation, the team discovers a vast underwater manufacturing complex, which they destroy by forcing the bioreactor containing the Cradle to explode; they also capture an unrepentant Kagan to expose her crimes to the world.
Shortly after Kagan's arrest, Kagan's right-hand man, Alden Dorne, breaks Falkner out of containment. The latter heads to a coastal base near Avalon, intending to unleash the Cradle upon the city once more. Specter One moves to kill Falkner while under heavy influence from the toxin; with his death, the Cradle dissipates from Avalon. Afterwards, Marshall and Karma task Specter One with pursuing Dorne, who is mobilizing the Guild elsewhere.