Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign

Where do I even start with the Black Ops 7 campaign? Following last year's fantastic effort led by developer Raven Software, Black Ops 7 contains a messy, stitched-together story mode that barely constitutes as a Call of Duty campaign whatsoever. Intrigued? Well, I'll do my best to explain what's going on here, but the long and short of it is that this year's game should have probably skipped a campaign mode altogether.

Rather than Black Ops 6's 90s Gulf War setting, Black Ops 7 flings players into the near future; apparently as a 'direct sequel' to 2012's Black Ops 2. There's nothing wrong with a futuristic Call of Duty setting in my book — especially when it comes to campaign — but Black Ops 7 is so hastily put together that you wouldn't really know what time period you're in anyway.

Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign1

Take this, for example: more than half of the game's missions are set in 'Avalon'; a reused battle royale map that was once planned to tie last year's Call of Duty game into the free-to-play Warzone before Activision hit the Verdansk-flavoured nostalgia button instead. These missions are more freeform in their map design but still typically give you one main objective to push for, so you just feel like you're turning them into linear levels anyway. And they all look and feel the same.

The other four missions — set in Angola, Japan, the US and Russia — play out as trippy flashback-style sequences; similar to a few of the levels that cropped up in 2020's Black Ops Cold War. They all ride off past series' highs (you'll spot familiar locations in each of them if you're a COD veteran), but they're at least more varied in visuals and layout than those Avalon-based missions I just mentioned. There's only four of them though, interspliced with those more open levels set in that one same area.

Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign2

As for the story that stitches them altogether, well, I couldn't really tell you much about it to be honest. I spotted various past Call of Duty characters that I recognised but didn't really know why they were present, the game skimps on the sort of big-budget cutscene setups that were present in last year's release - and in general, the whole thing doesn't make much sense; and that's coming from someone that's played every single Black Ops campaign. The story's just sort of, there.

And this brings me onto the big problem, really - you can immediately tell that this isn't a proper COD campaign mode. The series' signature cinematic flair is gone, its tight level design is absent, and you can feel the quick annual turnaround this year pretty much as soon as you start playing the story mode. The whole thing feels like a PvE experiment or something that would tie into Warzone; I just wish Activision and Treyarch would have set it up that way. Then it could have set more realistic expectations.

Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign3

Shall we run through a few positives, though? Well, to start, the gunplay is absolutely water-tight here; maybe even a step up from last year's game somehow. The near-future weaponry is very satisfying to use, as are the time period's matching enemies. Taking down robots and drones, watching sparks fly and chunks drop off them is always fun, and Treyarch definitely knows how to tune Black Ops gameplay at this point. There are a slew of passive and active abilities for you to mix things up as well - and overall, the team has done well with the game's shooting and movement mechanics.

Another positive is the surprise addition of a full third-person mode. Via the pause menu, you can just straight up switch to third-person and play the whole thing from an over-the-shoulder perspective. I wasn't sure if I'd like this way of playing COD, but it actually felt really good, and could help in certain scenarios where you'd be getting overwhelmed by enemies. The third-person perspective affords you a wider view of the action, and it doesn't take much away from the fun-as-heck shooting mechanics. I'd actually recommend playing the whole campaign this way.

Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign4

And back to the negatives... sorry. One of the reasons third-person comes in clutch here is because the Black Ops 7 campaign is also pretty poorly balanced, especially for solo players. The team has removed difficulty levels this year because it says the game will scale based on how many folks are playing (you can play up to four player co-op), but you do feel somewhat punished for going it alone. You'll often feel like you're facing wave after wave of bullet-sponge enemies as a solo player, and the term 'shooting gallery' feels apt when you're being pinned down by so many opposing forces. Third-person helps with difficulty, but it doesn't really make the experience any more enjoyable.

The game's focus on co-op also results in another negative... you can't play the Black Ops 7 campaign offline - you can't even pause it. Yep, even when you enter solo and choose to block people from joining online, pausing doesn't stop the action, which is irritating when you're blasting through a single-player offering. As I just mentioned too, there's no offline mode - the Call of Duty app throws up a message saying you have no offline content playable with just Black Ops 7 installed.

Black Ops 7 Campaign Review (Xbox): Black Ops Pedigree Can't Save This Mess Of A COD Campaign5

Conclusion

Black Ops 7 simply isn't worth playing for its campaign mode, so if that's what you dip into the Call of Duty series for every now and then, you can simply skip this year's entry. Based on my recent beta impressions I have hope that multiplayer and Zombies can drag this game up - and to be fair, if online PvE co-op is of interest to you, your mileage may go further here.

However, I feel that it's very fair to judge a COD campaign as a solo experience, and this just isn't it. Treyarch attempts to play the nostalgia card a few times and inject some personality into proceedings with its trippy levels and an admirable Michael Rooker supporting performance, but it just never comes together, and that's a shame coming off the excellent Black Ops 6 campaign last year. Black Ops 7's story mode feels messy, rushed, and simply an excuse to include 'Campaign' as one of the game's main features. Here's hoping next year's game takes us back to the top.