There have been scores of Call of Duty games created since the franchise first began back in 2003. This first-person shooter series originally focused on World War II battles but has since gone everywhere—in the past, present and future—for its battle-to-save-the-world pursuits.
With Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the series’ creators have seemingly gone, well, off the rails in search of something worth pulling a virtual trigger over. The game’s central campaign is a direct sequel to 2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops II. And it features many of the characters from that earlier entry, but that’s where the similarities end.
This go ‘round it’s 2035, 10 years after the events of Black Ops II. David Mason and his Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) team are given a unique mission: They must figure out how to kill a dead man.
It appears that the deceased terrorist Raul Menendez—whom Mason personally killed—has resurfaced to issue a new threat against the world. In response, a giant tech corporation called the Guild has stepped forward. Emma Kagan, the Guild’s CEO, is offering unwavering security in this time of global terror and fear.
If you’re instantly thinking deepfake AI, you’re spot on. But as Mason and crew step into the fictional city of Avalon, things get stranger. The four special ops soldiers are sprayed with a unique nerve gas that draws from their memories, enflames their emotions and drives them into hallucinatory fits and battles. So as they follow clues to world locales such as Tokyo, Angola and Vorkuta, they also give battle to zombies, gigantic plant monsters, huge spiders, 100-foot-tall giants and the like.
Of course, there’s more to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 than just thissci-fi fever dream of a single-player campaign. People buy these games for the potential months of online battles. And that’s very much a part of Black Ops 7, too.
At launch, the game offers 16 maps designed for classic 6v6 Deathmatch, Domination and Search and Destroy-like battles. And there are two larger maps, big enough for 20v20 combat skirmishes. There is also a collection of four “zombie modes” at launch where players can, well, shoot a lot of zombies.
Black Ops 7 also offers new wall-running and wall-jumping game mechanics that make in-map maneuverability much faster. And a new weapons-share feature allows players to share their custom weapon loadouts with others. All battle modes, including the single-player and co-op campaign, require an online connection.
Gamers slip into the role of one of four special ops soldiers who are battling to make the world safer and take on a nefarious corporate entity that’s ready to kill millions of people for profit.
The gameplay is smooth and quick. And the graphic visuals—during play and cutscenes—are nearly photorealistic.
However, that realism spills into the ongoing bloody side of play as well. There are scores of different pistols, machine guns, assault rifles, knives and explosives used to kill hostile humans, robots and raging creatures. Enemies include living skeletal rampagers, zombies and a variety of huge monsters that leap on and tear humans to pieces.
The blood splatter is nearly constant here, and some weapons cause foes to literally explode into chunks. Players can also sneak up on enemies and stab them repeatedly in the throat and chest or shoot foes execution style with a bullet to the head. We see frequent dismemberments and decapitations.
There are character cards that sometimes portray females in skimpy outfits with cleavage. And the soldiers exchange sexual quips on occasion.
Mentions and visuals of marijuana are part of the story mix. And, of course, the nerve gas (which feels much like something from a Batman comic) is an ever-present toxin that sends characters into raging hallucinations.
Language can become rather raw as well, with the inclusion of f- and s-words, crude misuses of God’s name and exclamations of “d–n,” “b–ch,” “h—” and “a–hole” peppering the dialogue.
Gory Call of Duty trigger-pulling battles seem to never end. And for Black Ops 7, the game makers take those fights into the bloody, hallucinatory realm of sci-fi monsters and giants—bringing some harsh language along for the ride. Santa and the Easter Bunny better beware.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
