Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has had a bumpy start, accruing an ‘Overwhelming Dislike’ verdict on Metacritic on its opening weekend, making it the most unpopular Call of Duty game ever by Metacritic user score.
Whilst critic reviews have contributed to an aggregated score of 84 on PC (there aren’t yet enough critic scores to give a verdict on console), hundreds of users have given the shooter the dubious honour of being the franchise’s most disliked instalment with an aggregate score of just 1.7 at the time of writing. A whopping 85 percent of users have left a negative review.
It’s also currently sitting on a ‘Mixed’ user score on Steam, with just 42 percent of player reviews leaving a positive thumbs-up.
Steam only represents one segment of the game’s PC audience, of course, and doesn’t take account of users playing through the Xbox PC app, let alone those on console. Nonetheless, complaints are varied, ranging from accusations that the “franchise has lost its way“, “strays far from Call of Duty’s identity“, and uses “ai slop“, while others call it “out of touch“, “disappointing“, and “another under-baked title delivered on false promises and blatant lies“.
While not all reviews are bad – there are several 10/10s posted to Metacritic – most complain that the campaign mode cannot be paused or saved manually, and criticise the publisher for in-game calling cards allegedly created using generative AI, all of which came to light when the game debuted on 14th November.
“Black Ops 6 wasn’t perfect but it felt like COD was back again,” explained one player. “Zombies were great, the campaign was okay and the multiplayer felt like it used to. For the first time in 10 years, my [sic] believed that Call of Duty was on the right track again. That is until, they announced Black Ops 7.
“Every. Single. Thing. That the community has been super vocal about hating, they decided to bring to Black Ops 7. Everything that we said we loved about Black Ops 6 and OG Call of Duty, they took away. Now all that’s left is a steaming pile of dog crap [where] a once great first person shooter empire lived. I hope this is a wake-up call, and the company decides to revert 100% back to the way that Call of Duty is supposed to be. This is what happens when you continue to put profit over passion.”
Though Activision has properly declared AI was used during the development of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on its Steam page, complaints about AI are particularly evident. As Connor explained for us earlier in the week, calling cards belonging to the ‘Jack of All Trades’ campaign challenges, as well as two specific calling cards in the ‘Embrace the Nightmare’ campaign endgame challenges, raised eyebrows as players noted similarities to the AI Studio Ghibli recreations which have been circulating online for the past few months.
“If you can accept Black Ops 7’s fundamental changes to the formula on their own terms, you’ll have a good trip, despite the psychochemicals coursing through your veins,” we said in Eurogamer’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review, awarding it 3/5 stars. “I’m just not convinced those changes bode well for the health of the series.”
