Black Ops 7 is the Best Competitive Call of Duty in Years

It’s been the worst Call of Duty launch in the better part of a decade. Sales are down, and player exhaustion is reaching an all-time high. But there’s no reason to panic if you’re a CDL fan. Despite its early woes, Black Ops 7 promises the best competitive season in years.

Black Ops 7 is Better Than Its Launch

There’s no hiding it. Black Ops 7 hasn’t gone down well with the mass audience. According to The Game Business, launch weekend sales in Europe have dropped a whopping 50 percent in comparison to its predecessor.

Call of Duty players simply aren’t intrested. However, this might not be a Black Ops 7 problem. 

There’s been years of missed opportunities and misaligned mission statements from the trifecta of studios behind CoD.

It’s franchise fatigue, with the high demands for the studios to churn out back-to-back titles year after year. Justifying the high prices has become much harder for games that are very similar to each other.

Competitors are proving much more popular than yet another formuleric CoD outing. BF6 outsold Black Ops 6 by 63 percent.

It’s a Call of Duty issue.

But that doesn’t mean Black Ops 7 is a bad game.

In fact, despite some of the futuristic elements not being the typical mass-audience pander, the game is one of the best multiplayer experiences we’ve had. Ever.

“Black Ops 7, being one of, if not the best Call of Duty games in a long time, with stuff in it that people have been begging for, being the most boycotted game is funny to me,” said popular content creator “Metaphor” on X (previously Twitter), summarising the thoughts of most players who chose to stand by the franchise.

And that’s the crux of it. Black Ops 7 is competitive-ready, and it’s making for the best experience in recent memory.

A Competitive-Ready Game

Historically, Treyarch has always been more in-tune with the competitive community, ever since it hit gold – or Master – with League Play in Black Ops 2. Recognizing that there is value in the smaller section of the player count that tunes in day after day, week after week.

That ethos is already evident in Black Ops 7. 

While Ranked Play is being held back until Season 1, there are signs that Treyarch is really leaning into the core playerbase. With features like aim assist, skill-based matchmaking, and map design all being heavily altered from previous years. Even the cheaters have diminished, now that there is a more focused player base.

There’s New game modes for Ranked Play launching in Season 1. They should be a nice change of pace from years gone by, and more can be expected.

Slated as the ‘biggest Black Ops ever’, the developers have promised deep and meaningful support for the game all year round.

Including the biggest haul of maps, modes, and quests to keep us all on our toes. Staple maps like Standoff have been ported alongside Raid as backup for any competitive shortcomings, but there’s plenty of classic three-lane designs.

Colossus, Scar, and Exposure all boast the chance of becoming maps high in tier lists in the years to come.

Multiplayer playlists are dense with life amid the rebalanced matchmaking. Ranked is rife with anticipation with the competitive CDL structure announced. Gameplay is at its best, and we’ve got Treyarch to thank once again.

In the same vein as how Black Ops 4, Advanced Warfare, and even Ghosts were all unfavored by the mass populations, Black Ops 7 has everything it needs and more to be one of the greatest competitive Call of Duty games of all time.