Editor’s note: Given the nature of Call of Duty games and the way the audience plays them, this review is split up into multiple components, each covering a specific aspect of Black Ops 7 with a score relevant to it. Alongside this, there is an overall score for the game at the bottom of this review. Alongside the campaign, this review will be updated with sections Zombies.
Black Ops 7 Campaign Review – New But The Same
The Call of Duty: Black Ops games lean into fantasy and often surprise with a mind-bending narrative, and the Black Ops 7 campaign is no exception. It’s themed around the enemy using fear as a weapon, and you’re dropped into a storyline filled with hallucinations of monsters, trippy locations, and bizarre scenarios. This is a specific flavor of Call of Duty story that only developer Treyarch has shown the capacity to tell, and despite a few stumbles, the Black Ops 7 campaign does enough to leverage the potential of its more psychological narratives, while also moving the satisfying shooter gameplay into a new framework.
Confusingly enough, Black Ops 7 takes place over 40 years after the events of last year’s Black Ops 6 and 10 years following the events of Black Ops 2. The story is set in 2035 as a direct sequel to Black Ops 2, and it brings back David Mason from that game as the main protagonist. In Black Ops 7, you see the effects of Black Ops 2’s canonical ending, where Mason kills villain Raul Menendez and an uprising occurs. The world is now ravaged by violent conflict and psychological warfare, and The Guild, a global tech corporation, has stepped in to “protect” humanity from the chaos created by Menendez’s followers. But uh-oh: Menendez seemingly returns despite his apparent death.
David Mason looks slightly different in Black Ops 7, as he is now played by Milo Ventimiglia (Gilmore Girls, Heroes) instead of the original actor Rich McDonald. Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy) is back as Mike Harper, a role he played in Black Ops 2. Eric Samuels also returns from Black Ops 2, and the fourth member of the squad is Leilani “50/50” Tupuola, who is a new badass soldier with advanced bionics. This squad of four is known as Specter One, and they’re guided by a much older version of Troy Marshall, played by Y’lan Noel (The First Purge), from Black Ops 6.
The Guild promises peace and pushes back against Menendez and his followers, but, lacking trust in big tech with armed mercenaries, David leads Specter One into Avalon, the fictional city and home turf for The Guild, to gain intel on the company and its CEO Emma Kagan. Kagan is a boring and underdeveloped villain who lacks emotion and whose true motivations are unclear, but at the same time, that suits a character inspired by real-world tech CEOs with far too much money and power. Kagan is played by Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), but unlike the rest of the star-studded cast, the talent of the actress seems wasted on such a lifeless character.
Kagan and the Guild have weaponized the fear-inducing biochemical substance known as Cradle, which Woods and Alder’s team were trying to stop in Black Ops 6. In the hands of Kagan, Cradle is being used against David and his team to stop their investigation into The Guild. This substance creates hallucinations that drive much of Black Ops 7’s campaign. Some of the best parts of the story are these trippy, down-the-rabbit-hole moments, where you’re fighting ghoulish creatures and Zombies-style bosses. There are also powerful hallucination segments where characters are forced to re-live parts of their pasts, including some heavy moments with Frank Woods caught in a hellish nightmare of guilt over killing David’s dad, Alex Mason, and the torturous time he spent locked inside a shipping container with all of his dead squadmates.
The mission styles have a good variety and usually offer either stealth or action in order to get the job done. Some missions try to nudge you toward the stealth route, but thankfully, you aren’t punished for not being sneaky and choosing to go guns blazing instead. You also get to fight across a wide variety of locations, despite a few missions taking place specifically on Avalon. Some of the hallucinations take David and his team back to past Black Ops campaign missions, so there’s some nice fan service with unique spins on iconic moments, such as the Battle of Los Angeles, Alex Mason’s prison break from Vorkuta, and the rescue of Frank Woods in Angola.
A lot of these throwback locations are used in a way that’s meaningful to Mason and his team, and as a Black Ops fan, I enjoyed seeing places like Vorkuta show up in Black Ops 7, but it is worth mentioning that the campaign does reuse some assets in a way that’s off-putting. Some of the creatures you encounter look demonic or undead, and those work for the hellish hallucinations, but a few missions use the Vermin and Parasite enemy-types from Black Ops 6 Zombies, and those feel jarringly copy-and-paste in Black Ops 7’s campaign. Most of the throwback locations feel purposeful except when the characters walk through the Skyline multiplayer map from Black Ops 6, as that feels weird to see even though it technically is a location that exists inside Avalon.
The campaign also has co-op, so the story puts you in the boots of David Mason or one of his squadmates. You’re Mason when playing solo, or you’re one of the other three squadmates in a co-op session of up to four players. Call of Duty having a cooperative campaign is something we haven’t seen since 2015’s Black Ops 3, where it was poorly received. Initially, I was feeling skeptical at the announcement of this being a co-op experience with some large-scale missions. I love co-op games and open-world environments, but I don’t think those formats often work well for Call of Duty–campaigns are at their best when you’re thrust into tightly controlled set pieces designed for a solo player. You’re the main character, and all the cinematic moments and immersion carry so much more weight.
Thankfully, the solo experience is still possible in Ops 7’s campaign. You can choose to play the full story alone, and the other three members of David’s squad just disappear. You still hear the characters’ voice lines as if you’re still fighting with the full squad, but you’re visually alone in the fight as the star of the show–initially I thought this was going to be awkward, but I didn’t think much about it. Going solo is the best way to fully experience the story’s scripted moments of tension and the eerier hallucinations you’ll encounter. This can still be a fun romp for those who want to play with their buddies and level up, but I’m glad my first playthrough wasn’t interrupted by friends during emotional moments of the story.
One downside is that the campaign is always online, meaning it doesn’t allow you to pause even when you’re solo. I always needed to make sure I was somewhere safe or keep playing until a mission was fully wrapped up before stepping away for a quick break. The checkpoints are pretty abundant and forgiving though, so I never found myself having to replay too much of a mission if I had to take a break midway through or I reached a challenging section where I died a lot.
Black Ops 7 blends the various set pieces you’d expect to find in a Call of Duty campaign with elements of this year’s new Endgame mode, which takes place in Avalon, a massive map used for the campaign’s new playable epilogue, that will also eventually become a battle royale map. You have a typical stealth mission, there are grueling gunfights through tight corridors and most of the other expected level designs, but there are also new elements like additional movement mechanics or supply crates that let you pick between special abilities. You get to use grapple guns, protective shield bubbles, or super soldier-like kinetic jump to leap higher. The result of this approach is hit-or-miss. There are times you feel Treyarch’s strong cinematic style, with tense, linear moments while trying to use stealth to move through narrow corridors of enemies, but there are other instances where you’re looting boxes for gear in a way that feels a little too much like Warzone or Modern Warfare 3 Zombies.
A majority of the 11 campaign missions are traditional linear style, but a few are large open-world missions that take place on Avalon, which is a massive map used for the campaign’s new playable epilogue called Endgame, and it eventually will become a battle royale map. In a previous interview with Treyarch, the developer explained its decision to include the open-world Avalon missions was to help ease players into the full endgame experience, which is unlocked after completing the campaign.
despite a few stumbles, the Black Ops 7 campaign does enough to leverage the potential of its more psychological narratives, while also moving the satisfying shooter gameplay into a new framework
These Avalon missions are more engaging than the awful open-world-ish filler missions featured in 2023’s Modern Warfare 3’s campaign, but they still don’t push the story forward in any meaningful way. They simply feel like they are meant to let players easily dip their toes into an endgame-style experience, without too much of a commitment. Avalon missions have an abundance of Guild enemies, and you can explore and pick as many fights as you want, but doing so isn’t necessary. I poked around a few areas of Avalon and engaged in a few fights with Guild soldiers before realizing I could just use my grapple gun and wingsuit to zip right past most of the enemies and quickly reach my objective. These missions don’t totally kill the pace of the game like Modern Warfare 3’s did, as you’re still there doing objectives like hacking servers to try to investigate the Guild, but this is another attempt at open-world missions in a Call of Duty campaign where the objectives just aren’t very enjoyable and could be better spent as a typical linear set piece.
In an unusual move, you can’t select the difficulty of the campaign. Instead, it scales based on how many people you’re playing with, adding a greater challenge with more players. This doesn’t mean flying solo is the easy mode, though. There’s still a fair amount of challenge, but you do get plenty of items to assist you, like an abundance of ammo, armor plates, and self-revive kits. I found myself overwhelmed by robotic Guild enemies more than a few times, but even if I went down, I usually had a self-revive kit to pick myself back up, and it never took me long to resupply myself with another kit. The lack of a difficulty setting is definitely an unfortunate compromise for the sake of offering cooperative play. The difficulty is supposed to scale, but that likely won’t be enough to appease everyone. I usually play the campaigns on the hardest difficulty, so this wasn’t a bad experience for me, but some players might get frustrated by the sometimes overwhelming amount of enemies that swarm you in the solo experience.
The entire Black Ops 7 campaign eases you into the power structure of Endgame by slowly leveling you up during the course of the story. You’ll eventually get increased health, weapons of higher rarity, and so on. You’ll also encounter the occasional weapon upgrade station, and each one lets you pick one weapon to upgrade to a higher rarity. There are also a handful of abilities you can choose over the course of the campaign, and some of them prove really useful. I liked using the ballistic shield bubble to temporarily protect me from heavy waves of enemies and the Black Hat device to hack and disable the Guild’s robotic enemies.
The eleventh and final mission of the campaign does wrap up Black Ops 7’s story, despite the ending not feeling very satisfying. All of the emotional moments the campaign builds up in the hallucinations fizzle out with Kagan falling flat as a villain, and there is a small plot twist that won’t spoil, but it does feel very underdeveloped. However, the game doesn’t end after the credits roll. Instead, you’re asked to create a character profile for Endgame, Black Ops 7’s new sandbox-style experience meant to deliver more story and content with post-launch seasons. This gives a new co-op experience to Call of Duty beyond the campaign, andI’m really excited by the potential this post-campaign content has.
Treyarch said the endgame was inspired by elements of Modern Warfare 3 Zombies and Modern Warfare 2’s DMZ extraction mode, which is very noticeable when you jump into a match. The endgame grants access to Black Ops 7’s full Avalon map, and you can play solo or in squads of up to four players. Either way, Endgame consists of PvE matches that consist of open-world gameplay with up to 32 players, and the goal is to level up your soldier’s combat power to unlock new abilities, as well as increase your health and other attributes. Avalon’s map is divided into four tiers of difficulty, and it requires a lot of leveling to be able to fight through enemies in the tougher regions. It’s much like DMZ, MWZ, and other extraction-style shooters, as Endgame is designed around high-risk and high-reward missions that require you to survive and successfully exfiltrate from Avalon to keep your progress and gear. If you die, you lose everything and will need to start over.
Endgame is where co-op shines in Black Ops 7’s campaign, and as someone who enjoyed both DMZ and MWZ, this gives me a new place to play and level up with friends. There are tons of mission types to complete, with some being fairly simple and others requiring more time and effort to complete. There is a mission to steal a Guild vehicle and deliver it to a specific location, while other missions are designed around breaching containers or attacking and defending areas. Another more challenging objective requires you to use your wingsuit to follow a floating path of toxins in the air, but if you miss even one of the marked areas, you fail the objective. The guns aren’t great in the tier one areas, which forces you to carefully consider the right upgrades for your playstyle in order to survive and scavenge some better loot in tougher regions of the map.
Endgame is let down by AI that isn’t very intelligent. Enemies have eagle eyes for spotting you, but they can often make silly mistakes that allow you to easily outplay them. You can’t underestimate them, though, because they can still overwhelm you with their numbers. The bullet-sponge enemies in the higher-tiered regions have sent me fleeing back into the lower zones, but I’m always left feeling eager to power up and return.
Endgame continues the story of the campaign, and there are already Guild facilities to investigate and a mysterious toxin spreading across Avalon. Of course, getting to the heart of this story requires being powerful enough to work through to the highest regions of the map. This is also where having friends to join you can help a lot. Venturing into the harder regions alone is a tough challenge, and it will always help to have someone nearby to revive you, especially when the cost of death means losing all your character progression.
Endgame will change over time, but at launch, some areas of Avalon can feel empty. Treyarch has teased some big boss encounters coming in Season 1, though it remains to be seen how those pan out. Endgame doesn’t do anything particularly fresh or innovative, but I still enjoy Call of Duty’s satisfying gunplay and mechanics in these sandbox-type experiences enough to keep coming back. In addition to new story elements, you also have this space to level up weapons and try new things outside of Call of Duty’s normal campaign and multiplayer experiences. I can see a lot of potential and replayability for the mode, especially if Treyarch remains committed to making thoughtful seasonal updates.
Outside of the story moments, one of my favorite additions to Black Ops 7’s campaign is the shared progression. For the first time ever, you can jump into a campaign and level up before ever touching the endgame, multiplayer, or Zombies. This includes overall player progression, weapon leveling, and it will include battle pass progression once the first season arrives. After my full campaign playthrough I ranked up to level 30 and already made progress with leveling several weapons. You also unlock unique campaign weapon camos, and there are plenty of challenges to complete for rewards like calling cards and other cosmetics.
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Overall, this is the most robust Call of Duty campaign experience, and depending on your preferences, you can fully level up, unlock rewards, and prestige all without ever leaving the campaign. This opens the door to more types of players to enjoy the longevity a Call of Duty game can have, without needing to focus on competitive scenarios.
The Black Ops 7 campaign has some successful missions and emotional ties to the characters and the overarching Black Ops story, and those moments make up for some of its shortcomings. However, this is not one of Treyarch’s strongest campaigns, and the twist and villainry here feel a little underbaked for a game designed to be a sequel to such a beloved storyline as Black Ops 2. The campaign still offers plenty of emotional character moments and touches on the impacts of Black Ops 2 story, so I think the story is definitely worth experiencing. Endgame also serves as an intriguing new way to play Call of Duty, and while it’s uncertain how much seasonal content will allow the mode to grow, I am excited to play more and see how Treyarch expands on it.
Score: 7
Black Ops 7 Multiplayer Review – Strong Map Design Makes Multiplayer A Blast
Call of Duty fatigue has been building up for some time. We’ve reached over two decades of yearly CoD releases, and this year delivers a second consecutive year of Black Ops. Going back-to-back with Black Ops 7 feels risky, but Treyarch clearly listened to community feedback and delivered several changes to prevent this year from an overly familiar feel. Treyarch brings a futuristic era, improved omnimovement, and strong map design with Black Ops 7, which greatly enhances the experience from last year. Black Ops 7 multiplayer is still adrenaline-fueled fun, but this year gives you new tech to play with and more room to breathe.
Treyarch pulls Black Ops out of the ’90s era of last year’s game and thrusts it into the year 2035 with robotic scorestreaks, high-tech gadgets, and a fresh and futuristic new HUD. It was a great decision to help avoid Black Ops fatigue. The scorestreaks aren’t just futuristic, but they are also more fun to experience than the run-of-the-mill streaks of recent years. There is either excitement or panic felt when a powerful streak like the killer DAWG robot or Black Ops 7’s robotic “Rhino” variant of a juggernaut spawns onto the map. There’s also the extremely powerful Gravemaker sniper rifle that basically gives you wallhacks, highlighting your enemies and shooting them through walls. This sniper scorestreak seems a bit unfair, but it is a hell of a lot of fun to use and is limited to only a few shots.
Treyarch’s omnimovement system returns from Black Ops 6, now with the addition of a wall jump. This sounds subtle, but the jumps can be chained together, so these small wall taps feel very impactful in a variety of situations. This extra vertically is great for situations where you might want to hop up and peek over cover to gain more intel. These jumps can also be used to gain access to windows and taller sections of the map that would otherwise be inaccessible, making opportunities for more aggressive action or even satisfying counterplays against snipers or campers. Although these maps aren’t bigger than usual, wall jumping provides more vertical playing space and more opportunities and angles from which to approach a given situation. It’s also just fun to use, and sometimes I find myself wall tapping around the map simply for the vibes.
My reaction time isn’t what it used to be, but I still get excited to work towards new streaks and pull off some fancy plays by leveraging omnimovement. It’s satisfying to surprise and outgun an opponent while performing wall jumps, even if it doesn’t happen as often as I’d like. Black Ops 7 still feels geared toward the new-gen crowd of players who demand twitchy movement and fast-paced action, so it will be harder to slow things down and play tactically in this Call of Duty, just as it was last year.
However, the maps are bigger this year, and that greatly helps the pace of the game. Last year, Black Ops 6 featured mostly small “headbanger” maps that put you face to face with your opponent in a matter of seconds. Black Ops 7’s maps feel more like the classic three-lane designs Treyarch has been known for in the past. The maps have a nice flow to them, and there are plenty of places for you to hold a line of sight with a sniper rifle or areas ideal for utilizing the new wall jump. Black Ops 7 still plays much faster than the older CoD titles, but the larger map sizes offer you more room to breathe and react.
The Black Ops 7 map pool features a wide variety of locations, with vibrant color palettes and interesting locales. Toshin is one of my favorite maps so far, which in addition to having a solid layout with a balanced mix of interior and exterior playspace, it also brings a fun setting within a neon-lit Japanese shopping district. You’re fighting through colorful shops and alleyways ripe with personality, and it’s a map layout that can serve all playstyles. Another favorite is Homestead, which takes the multiplayer experience to David Mason’s childhood home in Alaska for a gorgeous nighttime map that lets you fight under the beauty of the Northern Lights.
This stronger map pool also solves last year’s spawn issues, where you would die and spawn back in with the enemy already in your face. Spawn locations aren’t a complaint for me at all in Black Ops 7, which is surprising given how often they can be a problem in Call of Duty games. It’s refreshing to have larger map sizes and better spawns, both of which avoid frustrating loops of spawn-die, spawn-die, spawn-die.
There are two new multiplayer modes this year: Skirmish and Overload. Skirmish is a 20v20 mode, which serves as Call of Duty’s large-scale mode similar to Ground War. Several different objective types happen simultaneously, as teams fight to capture objective areas, hack devices, and plant explosives. When an objective is completed, a new one will spawn, so it’s a constant battle for points in a game where you want to earn the highest score. Maps are much larger than the standard 6v6 ones used for other modes, which allows for support of the campaign’s grappling hook and wingsuit. It’s a blast to glide around and provides some added utility in allowing you to easily spot the action. There are only two maps for this mode, but I hope the developer can add more maps and even more variety to the objectives, as there’s potential to do even more with Skirmish.
Overload is the new 6v6 competitive-style mode, which the pro players will be playing in the Call of Duty League this year. At first, I wasn’t having a good time with Overload, but it’s grown on me as a faster-paced twist on a more traditional capture the flag mode. Two teams fight for control of an EMP device, which they try to take to one of two marked areas on their opponent’s side of the map to “overload” the area. This is an attack-and-defend mode that can quickly feel like a bad time if your team isn’t communicating, but it feels exciting when you’re working together and scoring those Overload points.
Both of the new modes can be a blast to play. Skirmish is a more laid back and casual objective mode, while Overload is very fast paced, competitive, and requires more communication and teamwork if you want to avoid struggles or losing by a total blow out.
Black Ops 7’s gunplay is mostly what you’d expect from a Call of Duty game. The guns feel snappy and powerful, which is a good thing given the overall pace of the action. Most of the guns in Black Ops 7 feel solid and intuitive to control. However, returning players are likely to notice a change in the game’s aim assist, as Treyarch made adjustments to Black Ops 7’s implementation following feedback from the beta. It does feel less sticky on a controller when taking gunfights at range, but the aim assist doesn’t feel bad and is easy to adjust to.
The game features a good mix of new and fan-favorite guns. I’m a huge fan of the powerful M8A1 marksman rifle returning from Black Ops 2, because it’s great for long-range precision and defending during objective modes, but there are some fun new options designed for close-up fights, including the brand-new Echo 12 shotgun. The Echo 12 is a beefy dual-burst shotgun with an underbarrel rotating magazine that holds way more ammo than you’d normally get with a shotgun. This thing is powerful and perfect for clearing out enemies inside buildings, and you don’t want to turn the corner and come face to face with this shotgun.
Weapon loadouts work much like the create-a-class system from previous years, but one of the best new features is the build-share codes you get from the Gunsmith. Weapon customization became a tedious chore in the last few Call of Duty games, especially as the list of attachments grew longer post-launch. This feature lets you create a custom class and easily share the code with friends, so you don’t have to list out all the attachments and wait for your friends to scroll through long lists of attachments to find the right ones. Likewise, it makes it easier to grab a build code from your friends, pro players, and your favorite streamers.
Black Ops 7’s perk lineup is your standard Call of Duty variety. Some of them have new names and slightly adjusted benefits, but they’re still familiar ground, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of perk picks to tailor to your specific playstyle across Black Ops 7’s various game modes. Like last year, perks are divided into three categories: Enforcer, Strategist, and Recon. If you equip perks from the same group, you’re awarded an extra specialist perk that fits in the style of the others. One switch-up this year is the addition of Hybrid Specialists bonuses. This means you don’t need to have all three perks from the same category to get a bonus. You can get a smaller “hybrid” specialty perk by having at least two from the same category.
This isn’t a huge game changer, but it’s nice to know you can still get an extra bonus without needing to commit all your perks to being from the same category. There were times in Black Ops 6 where I picked three of the same type for a bonus, when maybe that third perk didn’t actually cater to my style, but I still added it to get the speciality.
One big change for Black Ops 7 is the reintroduction of classic matchmaking. This is the Call of Duty matchmaking formula present in the games that came before 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot. This means open matchmaking with minimal skill consideration, whereas the recent games had strict skill-based matchmaking (or SBMM). This is something that a vocal portion of the community has been requesting to change in Call of Duty, but I don’t think this is a positive for everyone. On one hand, I enjoy the classic matchmaking and the varied lobbies it provides. Some matches you get paired against really skilled opponents, and other times you’re the better player. Call of Duty’s strict SBMM of recent years made it difficult for players of various skill levels to play together. It also made some players feel punished for having a really good game, because the lobbies would seemingly increase in difficulty afterwards. On the other hand, I recognize there are players who might find the change jarring, if skill-based matchmaking was heavily protecting them. This is a big change for Call of Duty, and the impact of this remains to be seen.
Overall, the multiplayer package is really strong in Black Ops 7. The movement is fun and fluid, the gunplay is as satisfying as ever, and the map designs greatly improve the experience from last year. Combined with the smaller quality-of-life change and the futuristic themes, and Black Ops 7 feels like a fresh experience that avoids any dreaded fatigue.
Score: 8
Black Ops 7 Zombies Review – Plenty Of Ways To Slay The Undead
Call of Duty’s Zombies mode has lost some of its magic over the years. The most recent iterations of Zombies have added features that blend the experience with multiplayer and Warzone: armor plates, custom loadouts, and other mechanics and HUD elements that pull you a step out of the whimsical and often panic-inducing feel of the iconic mode. Black Ops 7 doesn’t give Zombies its own unique identity again, but there are some solid compromises this year that freshen the experience up a bit. The new round-based map, Ashes of the Damned, is more distinct than recent Zombies maps, and it separates the experience from last year’s mode.
Ashes of the Damned is the largest round-based Zombies map ever, but this time the map design is more road-like with a figure-eight track shape. So, while it still acts as a round-based map, Ashes of the Damned invites a different way to play and progress through your match. The map is designed around Ol’ Tessie, the map’s new Wonder Vehicle, which acts like a fifth member of your squad. The map is massive, and it’s composed of six main map locations connected by dangerous stretches of road. The map is also inspired by Black Ops 2’s Tranzit, so it features a few familiar locations from the old map, including the Tranzit Diner (now named Exit 115) and Vandorn Farm. The farm location feels mostly how I remember it from Black Ops 2 with just added decor and better atmospheric lighting, but the Diner is now updated to include more playable space.
Black Ops 7’s Zombies picks up right where Black Ops 6’s storyline ended with the Reckoning’s main Easter egg quest. Weaver and his crew are standing alongside the iconic cast of Takeo, Dempsey, Nikolai, and Richtofen inside of Janus Towers. However, the building and everyone inside has been thrust into the Dark Aether dimension.
There is still uncertainty on how the original cast ended up in Janus Towers with Weaver’s team, but the new villain is a mysterious man with a southern drawl and a cowboy hat, who used magical zombie heads to take the characters’ souls. This means you have two main casts of Zombies characters to choose from when playing, and your goal within the game’s main quest is seemingly to find out how to get their souls back and escape the Dark Aether. There is a hidden story quest to uncover, as well as the map’s unique Wonder Weapon, the Necrofluid Gauntlet, to discover. The original cast wrapped up their story arc several years back now, so I do think it’s risky to bring back such fan-favorite characters unless there is a really good payoff for the story. This could just be empty nostalgia bait, but we’ll likely be waiting a while to find out how the story unfolds. The mysteries of the story will no doubt take the community some time to unravel, so how successful the narrative is in zombies remains to be seen.
To complete the story quest, you’ll use Ol’ Tessie and venture all over the map, but you can technically stick to surviving within one single POI on the map as if it were a traditional map. Of course, I’d still recommend making use of the Wonder Vehicle and exploring to make the most of the experience. Perk machines, weapons, and other items are scattered all around the map, and the roads that connect the various map sections are filled with aggressive and fast enemies called Ravagers. You’re likely to have a bad time if you try to walk the roads alone.
Even if you’re using the Wonder Vehicle, you still want to mow down the hordes chasing you and get to your destination as quickly as possible. Some of the map areas and stretches of road get really narrow, making for tense moments as enemies swarm you. Ol’ Tessie can be damaged, rendering her immobile until repaired. She’s pretty fragile in her default state, but you can upgrade the Wonder Vehicle with armor and a mounted turret. This doesn’t mean the vehicle is invulnerable, but that also helps keep the tension in the high rounds. You always feel the pressure to keep yourself and Ol’ Tessie alive, as she provides safer travel and serves as your Pack-a-Punch machine.
It’s not just zombies and Ravagers trying to stop you and Ol’ Tessie in Black Ops 7. Ashes of the Damned also introduces Zursa, the game’s new zombie bear enemy type. Zursa has bee hives growing on it to add “Zombees” to your list of threats. This bear is very powerful with biting and clawing attacks, and a match can turn dicey once you get swarmed by zombies, Zursa, and the bees, which spread out across the map to make it hard to escape them. Running through the bees doesn’t cause noticeable damage, but they slow your movement, which is not what you want when you’re already dealing with a massive zombie bear. Overall, these new enemy types further help keep the unpredictable and hectic pace of Zombies with Ashes of the Damned.
One complaint I had with Black Ops 6’s Zombies concerned the frustrating special rounds. In past years, these were the hellhounds that attacked you and gave you a Max Ammo power-up to replenish your ammunition. Last year, the hellhounds were replaced with spider-like Vermin and the flying Parasite bugs. Both enemies spawned too gradually and disrupted the pace of the game. In Black Ops 7, you’re faced with the extreme opposite: Special rounds progress much faster now in comparison to Black Ops 6, and feature the swift-moving Ravager enemies found on the roads of Ashes of the Damned. They are very aggressive and can get overwhelming in later rounds, especially if you’re solo, but I like the pressure you feel when the special round starts. Overall, it feels like a much quicker experience.
The overall design and atmosphere for Ashes of the Damned are also a highlight. The entire map takes place inside the Dark Aether, which the developer describes as being a “Bermuda Triangle,” where various earthly and celestial locations are transported to create this interesting juxtaposition of POIs that come from various times and places. This makes every location feel fresh, but it still all ties together nicely with the dark and haunting aesthetic of the Dark Aether.
You’re almost always fighting for your life, so it can be hard to find time to look closely at the finer details Treyarch packed in, but there are many subtle details that make places like Vandorn Farm and the Diner feel more alive than before. Walking into the farm’s barn is creepy, with gory bodies hanging from the rafters, while a dead family is sitting at the dining table inside the farmhouse. These elements do a great job at making you feel uncomfortable. The lighting also feels well balanced throughout the map. Ashes of the Damned is dark enough to be eerie but still provides atmospheric lighting to avoid areas from being so dark that it hinders your survival.
The overall design of the Dark Aether setting helps to combat one of the larger complaints about Black Ops 6’s Liberty Falls launch map. Liberty Falls was a daytime setting designed to look like a small town destroyed by a zombie apocalypse, but it felt too bright and too normal to properly capture the horror fantasy aesthetic typically associated with Zombies maps. The eerie nighttime tone in the Dark Aether suits Ashes of the Damned really well, and it does so without compromising on visibility on the map.
Outside of the Wonder Vehicle and track-like map design, most of the game’s features pull a lot from Black Ops 6. There are “wall buy” stations where you can purchase specific weapons and armor upgrades, GobbleGum machines, field upgrades, Perk-a-Cola machines, and Pack-a-Punch. However, the Pack-a-Punch machine is much more viable this year, as you’re actually upgrading Ol’ Tessie to become your mobile Pack-a-Punch. You can upgrade your weapons on the fly without ever leaving your truck.
Ashes of the Damned does include its own unique HUD design, which is one of the few shortcomings of Black Ops 7’s Zombies experience. Unfortunately, the layout isn’t visually interesting, and it still includes all the Call of Duty HUD elements of recent years that detract from the classic Zombies survival experience. The compass, minimap, and squadmate list all provide intel, but I think the experience was at its best when you didn’t have so much information cluttering your screen, and you were forced to rely on team communication.
Thankfully, Treyarch does give you the ability to customize and create a classic HUD style in the game’s settings; you can even disable everything. I chose to keep the round markers and my gun information so I could see my ammo count, but I removed everything else for a cleaner look meant to provide the more difficult challenge previously found in Zombies
In addition to the main launch map, Zombies is also packed with other options for slaying the undead. The Vandorn Farm POI can be played separately as a small survival map. This is a more contained Zombies experience that gives you access to all the perks, Pack-a-Punch, and other items you need, and your goal here is to simply survive for as long as you can. This is a great addition to have when Ashes of the Damned feels like too much to handle, as there are times you might not want to fuss with Ol’ Tessie or a large-scale map. This can also present a more casual experience with less commitment of time.
Lastly, Treyarch includes a “Cursed” mode for Black Ops 7. This is not available at launch, but it will unlock the ability to use relics to customize the Ashes of the Damned map for a more classic Zombies experience.
Ashes of the Damned implements some ambitious ideas for Zombies that largely succeed. The map is massive and refreshingly atmospheric, there are thrilling new enemy encounters, and the traversal elements with Ol’ Tessie separate the experience from more traditional maps. Ashes of the Damned excels as a cooperative experience, while Vandorn Farm’s survival map offers a fun way to have a solo or more condensed experience. Either way, Black Ops 7 provides enjoyable ways to slay the undead.
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