Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has been released to a 1.8 user Metacritic score, marking the franchise’s lowest score in its history. While the game was reviewed well by critics, fans have noted the use of AI and a disappointing campaign in their reviews.
A new year, a new Call of Duty. However, unlike any other year, the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is facing backlash from fans, who have gone on to mass-review the game negatively, giving the franchise a new all-time low score of 1.8 on the review site Metacritic.
Released November 14 and developed by Treyarch and Raven Software, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 serves as yet another instalment in the Black Ops franchise. You play as David Mason (played by Milo Ventimiglia), investigating the return of the assumed-dead terrorist Raul Menendez. Along the way, you and your team get hit with powerful psychotic drugs, which lead to nightmarish setpieces similar to those Scarecrow levels in the Batman Arkham games.
While the game is reviewed favourably by critics and sits at an impressive 83 review score on the site (slightly above its main competitor, Battlefield 6), fans disagree.
In their reviews, fans have cited the game’s campaign as a sticking point, calling it “the worst of them all”. As mentioned above, some of the nightmare setpieces have been memed by fans. One scenario that has gone viral sees players fighting a giant version of Michael Rooker’s character, which fans have dubbed “skibidi toilet boss fight”.
In several reviews, critics noted that the game uses AI egregiously, claiming that certain cosmetics use AI art to recreate a “Studio Ghibli” style.
Activision would respond to the outlet PC Gamer, saying: “Like so many around the world, we use a variety of digital tools, including AI tools, to empower and support our teams to create the best gaming experiences possible for our players. Our creative process continues to be led by the talented individuals in our studios.”
In the words of Fallout, “Everyone Disliked That”.
Yet another outrage would occur after it was revealed that even the game’s campaign is online-only. This means that if players are idle for too long, they will be kicked from their mission and have all their progress reset.
As a result of this design philosophy, players also can’t pause the campaign at all, due to its intended multiplayer co-op environment. Players will also receive no AI companions during the campaign if they can’t fill out a squad, which makes going solo fairly tedious.
While the user blowback and negative reviews aren’t encouraging, it’ll be surprising if the controversies are enough to impact Activision’s wallet here. Some outlets have reported that Black Ops 7 has yet to reach 100k players on Steam, while, notably, competitors Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders have consistently received over 200k players since launch.
However, given that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is available for Game Pass subscribers, a significant number of players may be experiencing the game through Microsoft’s own platform instead. Still, we’ll have to wait until after the game’s first weekend to get an accurate idea of player count this time around.
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