Black Ops 7 improves on Black Ops 6 in lots of small but important ways, including better movement and maps.
The Call Of Duty : Black Ops 7 beta kicks off this week. I had a chance to play the same content coming to the beta early at Call Of Duty : Next. While I was a bit skeptical about yet another back-t0-back release in the same Call Of Duty sub-franchise I had an absolute blast playing Black Ops 7 .
While the two games play very similarly thanks to the omni-movement system – and the fact that they were developed concurrently, no doubt – there are some key differences.Black Ops 7 is set in 2035, decades after the events of Black Ops 6. It’s chronologically and narratively a sequel to Black Ops II. This makes for a very different aesthetic: Near-future rather than early 1990s. While Black Ops 6’s arsenal felt very DIY, the guns and tech on display in Black Ops 7 are high-tech and sleek. One of the scorestreaks is a robotic dog . You won’t be firing laser guns, but the assault rifles, SMGs, sniper rifles and the rest of your kit all feels decidedly futuristic and sleek.There are a few innovations with your gear and scorestreaks as well. The biggest is the advent of “overclocking” which allows you to choose between two bonus effects for all your lethals, tacticals, scorestreaks and field upgrades. The stim, for instance, can give you an extra speed boost or remove non-lethal conditions. Certain grenades can be thrown further or pack a more lethal charge.Perhaps the biggest change to gameplay is wall-jumping. This is effectively a toned down version of wall-running. You can leap from walls, gaining significant altitude. This makes for some really fun plays, as you burst out from a flank above an unsuspecting opponent, reigning bullets down on them from above. This, combined with omni-movement, opens up all kinds of play options. And yes, it will widen the skill-gap, for better or worse. It’s a lot of fun, but players with a better grip on movement will have more ways to outgun you than ever.Smaller changes include the removal of Tac Sprint – that extra boost of speed you can conjure in Black Ops 6 and several previous Call Of Duty titles. It’s still an option, but only as a perk. A handful of new perks are also coming to the game, as well as new field upgrades like active camouflage and new high-tech lethals and tacticals.There are also lots of new guns, though I tend to play mostly with SMGs in multiplayer. All three of the SMGs I used were fun and distinct, though I particularly enjoyed the extremely mobile Graz 45k. Kitting this out for mobility and speed, combined with perks like Dexterity, makes for extremely nimble play. We played one new mode, Overload, which has teams competing to grab and deliver a device to one of two enemy dropoff points. We’ve seen similar modes in the past. It’s fast and frenetic and encourages teamwork and a very aggressive playstyle. I played on all six of the maps that will be available during the beta. Blackheart, which takes place on a drilling rig, is the smallest of the bunch and perfect for TDM. It’s probably the best showcase for wall-jumping, with lots of areas designed with this mechanic specifically in mind. I’m not a huge TDM player but on a map this size, with this much variety for its small size, it was certainly never boring. I’d say that overall, these maps are stronger than the ones we got at Black Ops 6’s launch, with more variety and character. Some, like Imprint, are a little bonkers, with lots of cliffs and narrow walkways. Others, like The Forge, are more traditional three-lane affairs. Of course, I’m curious to see how all these play on modes like Search & Destroy, which wasn’t available during the event and won’t be a part of the beta. One noticeable change from previous games: There are no doors to open. The only doors slide open automatically, so you’ll never close or open doors, never peak doors, never shoot doors open with your gun.As far as graphics are concerned, Black Ops 7 looks phenomenal, though of course I played on a high-end gaming PC so I can’t comment on console graphics or performance. It’s much sleeker than Black Ops 6, which is surprising. The only issue I encountered in terms of performance was a bug in loadouts where selecting one thing made it so that you couldn’t select anything else . Tabbing over to a different loadout fixed this. I suspect this will be ironed out soon, but I’m sure we’ll encounter other bugs during the beta .This is not a major departure from last year’s game, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s certainly not the drastic change between Modern Warfare III and Black Ops 6. It feels more connected to Black Ops 6 does than Modern Warfare III felt to Modern Warfare II. Modern Warfare III fixed some of the glaring movement issues with Modern Warfare II . Black Ops 7 feels more like a “wouldn’t it be cool to try this?" type upgrade rather than a fix. Wouldn’t it be cool to let players jump off walls? Wouldn’t it be cool to give them all these high-tech gadgets? The biggest improvements – and I can only speak to the limited maps and modes I’ve played – are to map design. We’ll have to see how that holds up when the rest of the maps are released at launch, which will include two large maps for 20 vs 20 battles, and the return of Gunfight. I’ll have some impressions on the new Warzone Resurgence map, Haven’s Hollow, in a separate piece. That won’t be out until Black Ops 7 Season 1 launches later this year, presumably in December about a month after the November 14th launch. All told, after many hours spent playing across multiple maps and modes, I’m quite bullish on this game’s multiplayer experience. That makes me happy since I spend a good deal of my leisure time playing Call Of Duty with friends. Gunplay feels good, the sound effects are excellent and the combination of omni-movement and wall-jumping makes the game more mobile than ever, without ever straying too close to the wall-running + jetpacks style of play that led, eventually, to a “boots on the ground” renaissance. Note: I played against both fellow game journalists and some big names in the streaming community, and even though a lot of those guys are better thane me, I had a great time. I got the feeling that everyone was having a great time, actually, and chatter after the event was very positive – at least about multiplayer. I’ll get into the grumbling over Warzone in my next piece. The beta kicks off this Thursday, and I’ll be curious to hear what you all think as well. Just not about SBMM, which isn’t going anywhere and isn’t the reason people don’t play well .
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