Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 took the stage at the Gamescom Opening Night Live event today, but that was just a quick campaign teaser and release date. All the real info came after in a 17-minute Blops 7 overview (watch above).
There's still more to come at Call of Duty Next, Activision's annual reveal [[link]] event that usually involves streamers playing the game live and leads right into open beta. That's happening on September 30, and the Black Ops 7 open beta begins on October 2.
The direct was packed with details, as is the accompanying blog post. Here are the highlights I yanked out of everything shown today:
- 16 new 6v6 maps at launch (plus a few returning Blops classics)
- The Wall Jump: Omnimovement is back unchanged, but now you can wall jump, which Activision says lets you "evade or out-style your pursuers while increasing your traversal capabilities."
- A Warzone-like map will be used in the campaign: Remember when Modern Warfare 3 padded its short campaign with random missions on the Warzone map? It sounds like Blops 7 is doing something similar with a large map called Avalon. Of course, Activision is being super vague about it: "Integrating seamlessly into the Campaign, Avalon adds another dimension to the Campaign experience."
- Campaign/Multiplayer cross-progression: You can earn multiplayer XP in [[link]] the campaign, which feeds into how the line between campaign/multiplayer is blurring these days
- Carry forward: As everyone guessed, all Black Ops 6 weapons and ugly cosmetics will carry forward into Blops 7, but not until Season 1
- 4-player campaign co-op: The first time CoD's had it since 2015
- Unlock challenges return: The popular progression mechanic from Modern Warfare 3 (2023) is back, tying attachment and weapon unlocks to weekly challenges you can customize.
- 20v20 maps: There are two at launch, used in a mode called Skirmish that basically sounds like Ground War
- Zombies: It's back and it's round-based
In all, it sounds like an extremely normal year for CoD. With this being another immediate sequel with not all that much changing from last year's game, I wonder if we're looking at the new tempo for this series: A CoD that carries forward everything from the previous year, followed by an actual reset the next year.
We'll learn more about Blops 7, and finally see some uninterrupted multiplayer gameplay, at CoD Next on September 30.