The only thing the campaign in Black Ops 7 can be praised for is that it's slightly better than in Battlefield 6. But honestly, that's like praising an adult for knowing how to breathe.
It's amazing how the two biggest shooters of the year are so similar in terms of story modes. No, they don't tell the same stories, they don't drag the heroes through the same locations. This similarity is in their stupidity and complete uselessness. Let's be honest – if Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 were $20 cheaper due to the lack of story modes, few would be upset.
The plot in Black Ops 7 is a series of loosely connected events, devoid of logic, sequence, and even common sense. This is the worst campaign not only in the Black Ops subseries, but in the entire Call of Duty as a whole. Even Ghosts and Vanguard don't look so bad compared to Black Ops 7.
The plot centers around David Mason and his schizophrenia, which forces him to play the hero in the company of three imaginary comrades, trying to stop the head of a villainous corporation and Raul Menendez. And no, there's nothing wrong with the fact that the canonical ending of Black Ops 2 is where Menendez "racked his brains" after David Mason shot him in the head point-blank – it doesn't matter here. After all, the Call of Duty writers know better.
Why is David Mason schizophrenic? It's all because the campaign in Black Ops 7 is designed for cooperative play. Forget that the developers only promised cooperative endgame – developers lie to players all the time, it's time to get used to it. In all the cutscenes, Mason enthusiastically discusses and interacts with his squad. When it comes to gameplay, the three comrades physically disappear, turning into voices in Mason's head, who actively comment on what is happening and even pretend to take direct part in the missions.
Mason single-handedly deals with hordes of enemies, repeatedly finds himself on the verge of death, and when the next cutscene starts, a trio of his imaginary friends appears and breathes wearily, as if they also participated in the shootout.
In later stages, it becomes clear that the developers did not bother themselves with balancing the difficulty or thinking through the arenas at all. Completing the last few missions alone is extremely difficult due to the number of enemies and the structure of the tasks, which require teamwork. As an example: in one of the tasks, one or two members of the squad must turn valves while the others cover them from the advancing enemies. Of course, solo passage turns into a painful torture – Mason cannot turn the valve with one hand and shoot with the other. There are an obscene number of enemies in the locations for one player, but at the same time too few for a quartet.
Moreover, it is sincerely incomprehensible why Treyarch could not add at least AI partners, as the Battlefield 6 developers did. It is believed that Microsoft also greatly cut budgets here – in order to "recoup" the 70 billion spent on Activision Blizzard.
There was no money for normal location design either. Having jumps of several meters up, running along walls and futuristic weapons, Black Ops 7 does not use the capabilities of its own universe in any way, sliding into primitive shootouts with stupid enemies. It's just amazing how only graphics have evolved over the years in the games of the series, when in terms of artificial intelligence, Halo: Combat Evolved, Killzone and F.E.A.R, released back in the 2000s, have remained unsurpassed.
If jokes about imaginary friends can somehow be parried by the cooperative structure of the campaign – they say, if you play together, then everything is logical – it is simply impossible to explain the delirium that is presented here in the form of missions.
Having breathed in some mind-altering gas in the very first task, the gang begins to watch cartoons in their heads: literally traveling through fantastic worlds, with skyscrapers flying in the clouds, as well as zombie-spider-infested jungles. In one of the missions, Mason needs to help a horde of living dead escape from a prison in Vorkuta, in another to fight a tree that devoured Frank Woods, and in the third to destroy a giant vomiting meteorites.
Yes, there were hallucinations in Black Ops: Cold War towards the very end, but this was a single section with Adler's comments, which fit perfectly into the overall storyline. Black Ops 7 is entirely like a collective madness of a quartet of drug addicts.
The fact that the campaign cannot be completed without connecting to the network adds to the absurdity and madness. In case of problems with Microsoft's servers or problems with your provider, the mission will have to be replayed not from the save, but from the very beginning. The game also cannot be paused. The phone rings, the household distracts – Black Ops 7 doesn't care. Either stand under enemy fire, or disconnect to replay everything later.
The game also automatically connects to the general communication channel, which is why during cutscenes you may suddenly start hearing someone munching chips into the microphone, scolding the dog for a puddle on the carpet, or just laughing loudly at the characters' lines. Moreover, you will be connected to this channel even if you are playing with friends, which is why you will hear completely strangers.
Here's another joke for you: due to the constant connection to the network, Black Ops 7 regularly checks itself for updates. And if you are completing a mission, and Activision decides to roll out a patch, then the game will not forget to remind you of this and WILL FORCE you to restart the game to make changes. You can't refuse this. And this is strange – such notifications do not pop up in the middle of matches in multiplayer.
Black Ops 7 is not saved by the praised endgame either, in which players get to Avalon, where they have to perform various tasks from clearing outposts to destroying convoys and enemy commanders. The funniest thing is that the developers simply transferred the zombie mode from Modern Warfare 3 to a new map, replacing tonics with a leveling system. By completing tasks, you get a combat rating and grow in levels, increasing the speed of reloading, running, the amount of health and armor.
Avalon is divided into four zones, where the first is the easiest and calmest, and it is better not to go to the fourth if the combat rating is below 45. There, players will find the final boss, stolen from the zombie mode of Black Ops 6.
Treyarch promised to develop Avalon, adding missions and activities, if players like it. It is likely that this will be the case, because the zombie mode of Modern Warfare 3 had many fans.
Diagnosis
If you have nowhere to spend four hours of your life, then you can devote them to the Black Ops 7 campaign. You will be both amused by its madness and saddened by what Black Ops has turned into.
There are no memorable cinematic scenes or a decent soundtrack here. There are not even stupid sayings of the heroes, which can then be used as memes. But we hasten to reassure you – the staging and script were clearly not created by artificial intelligence, because even the first version of ChatGPT is not capable of such madness. But we advise Activision Blizzard to take a closer look at the team that created the campaign: it is better to send these to a home where they give out comfortable shirts with long sleeves, and soft walls in the rooms.
A pleasant consolation will be only the "Avalon" mode, where you can safely upgrade weapons, profile and battle pass (when it comes out) on stupid bots. You no longer need to try to do this in multiplayer with people who have exchanged their personal lives, the street and their own future for the opportunity to shoot accurately in a computer game.
