Black Ops 7 gave me the best CoD matches in years—so why am I skipping its big new mode?

Boots, walls, and whiplash: my first hour in Black Ops 7

I spawned on Blackheart, saw two enemies lock a lane, and did something Call of Duty hasn’t made me do in years: I stopped, looked up, and planned a route that didn’t exist five seconds earlier. One sprint-cancel into a wall jump, second kick to a window ledge, slide, hip-fire, snap, snap. I wasn’t stylish-more newborn deer than parkour legend-but the new Omnimovement with wall-jumping clicked in a way I didn’t expect. By the end of that match I wasn’t thinking about loadouts or meta, I was thinking about angles. That alone told me Black Ops 7 might be the first CoD since BO4 to pull me in for the long haul.

That excitement didn’t spread evenly across the whole package, though. After about 40 hours split between PS5 (120Hz mode on an LG C1) and a 1440p/144Hz PC setup, I’ve lived the classic Black Ops trifecta: a campaign that swings hard and whiffs, Zombies that’s familiar with pockets of fun, and a multiplayer suite that feels like Treyarch raided my brain’s nostalgia locker and modernized the right parts.

How I played: setup, settings, and playstyle

I’m a high-FOV player (110 on PC, 105 on PS5), tactical sprint bound to L3, sensitivity 6/6 on controller and 800 DPI/6 in-game on mouse. I spent roughly 28 hours in core 6v6, 6 hours in Overload, 3 in Skirmish, and the rest split between the campaign, Endgame, and Zombies. Crossplay was on, and I alternated between DualSense and a mouse to sanity-check aim assist vs. raw flicks. My matches hovered around 25-35 ms ping, with the usual SBMM salad you expect in 2025.

Campaign: gorgeous hallucinations, thin payoff

On paper, I’m the mark for BO7’s story direction. I like when Call of Duty gets weird. Black Ops 2-era callbacks? Sure. Psychological loops? Absolutely. But the campaign here spends so much time staring into the rearview that the actual road ahead becomes a blur. David Mason and his fireteam chase The Guild and their bioweapon, but the beats keep dragging you back into memories-sometimes literally, sometimes via full-on boss arenas that feel torn from other genres entirely.

The best moments are ridiculous enough to make you grin. A Menendez hallucination where you basically drop giant machetes like airstrikes? I cackled. A grotesque, plant-monster thing that made the squad feel like they accidentally wandered into a Destiny 2 raid? Genuinely wild. And the giant Harper fight that nudges you toward soulslike dodge timing is so absurd that I couldn’t help but enjoy it, even as my brain asked, “Why are we doing this?” The problem is the throughline: it rarely feels like forward motion. You’re scrubbing through Black Ops history more than you’re writing new pages.

Co-op helps. Weapon upgrade stations and gear caches are smart additions that soften the usual campaign whiplash of pre-baked loadouts. But open missions set in Avalon didn’t land for me. They’re wandering spaces with enough objectives to keep you active, yet not enough personality to make me remember them a day later. And when the final boss and finale arrived, the campaign exhaled with a whimper. The fireworks you expect at the end just… didn’t go off.

Endgame extraction: a loop that resets your enthusiasm

After credits, you’re funneled into Endgame, an extraction-style mode set in Avalon. On paper, I like risk-reward grinds: push deeper, bank your progress, or get greedy and lose it all. In practice, early progression is a sleepy slog. You’re doing PvE chores against basic Guild AI, building your combat score to unlock tougher zones and better gear, only to be blindsided by zombie-like hordes that make the whole thing feel like Zombies with more paperwork.

Two nights in, the mode finally opened up once I’d unlocked better perks and rolled a couple of spicy weapon drops. Suddenly, I was juggling objectives and making evac calls with sweaty palms again. But that reset-to-zero penalty after a failed extract drains the fun fast at lower tiers, and Avalon’s visual identity doesn’t sell the fantasy. It’s a mash-up of DMZ’s bones, Cold War’s Outbreak vibes, and some MW3 Zombies spice, and I never found a reason to pick Endgame instead of just playing Zombies or core multiplayer. The idea isn’t bad; the early pacing is.

Zombies: comfort food with a couple of crunchy bites

Ashes of the Damned is a strong table-setter. It tips the hat to Tranzit without becoming a cover band. You’ve got the looped-vehicle idea back—this time an upgradeable pickup truck—TEDD shows up in a darkly comedic way, and yes, there’s a zombified bear that made my whole squad yell in party chat. In terms of feel, it’s close to BO6 Zombies, but the routing and secrets gave us that classic “wait, try this lever” energy by hour two.

The extra modes help more than I expected. Cursed mode dials things back to early Zombies fundamentals: a hit-based points system, no pre-baked loadouts, punishing Pack-a-Punch prices. It’s mean in the right way and instantly made my group communicate better. Survival returns as a tight, fenced-off endurance test, and it’s the perfect “we’ve got 15 minutes, let’s sweat” option. And Dead Ops Arcade? Still the riot. It’s top-down chaos with Vampire Survivors DNA, and the power-up cadence is tuned just so—you’re cackling during minigames and still chasing the next upgrade when you die. I only spent about an hour in Dead Ops this week and it was some of the purest fun I’ve had in BO7.

Do I wish there was a truly new, “we’ve never done this” Zombies twist? Yeah. Treyarch leans on history a lot this time, and while the variety is legit, it’s mostly familiar variety. Still, as a package, Zombies feels like a reliable Friday night plan.

Multiplayer: the swagger is back

Core 6v6 is where Black Ops 7 sings. The Omnimovement revamp was already lively last year, but wall-jumping unlocks a new layer of improvisation. It’s not Titanfall 2 wall-running; it’s a bursty, momentum-driven vault that lets you stitch together weird diagonals and hit flanks that weren’t there before. The joy is in the micro-choices: do I take the long lane and risk a headglitch duel, or do I double-tap off that air conditioner, bounce to the window, and land behind the power position?

Maps support the rhythm more often than they choke it. Blackheart has become my movement lab; Exposure is a nice balance of sightlines and flank routes; Toshin is pure tempo—lots of mid fights that reward smart repositioning. Retrieval is the odd one out for me. Something about its flow fights the Omnimovement fantasy, and I skip it when given the chance. Across most of the lineup, though, I’m having those “one more match” nights where suddenly it’s 2 a.m. and your friends are asking how we got here.

I do have one movement gripe: invisible walls. A few times, I saw a perfectly reasonable ledge or signage that seemed like it should be part of the sandbox, launched toward it, and bonked off an unseen barrier. I get the balance concerns, and obviously you can’t let players perch on every light fixture, but when a spot feels intentional and you’re blocked, it breaks the “use your creativity” contract the game otherwise pushes so well.

Overload is the best new mode Treyarch’s shipped in years

Overload hit me with that old Uplink adrenaline. Two goals per team, one neutral EMP device, escort runs that feel like a power play in hockey. The round flow produces natural pivots: you’re bodyguarding a carrier one second, then doubling back to spawn-trap a goal line the next. On my third night, we discovered a nasty little cycle—two on the carrier, one player cutting off the enemy’s mid rotate, and one floating between lanes to stuff counter-pushes. When the EMP detonates inside the enemy goal and the scoreboard pops, you get that delicious “we planned that” rush.

I’m curious how Overload will shake out in Ranked or the CDL, but in pubs it’s already a staple for my squad. It encourages smart trading and deters lone-wolf heroics without forcing you into rigid roles. More importantly, it’s straight-up fun. Control who?

Skirmish: wingsuits, vehicles, and a whole lot of meh

Skirmish is a 20v20 blender that borrows a bit from Ground War, a bit from Hardpoint, and a bit from Warzone Resurgence. Respawning with a wingsuit sounds cool—glide back into the chaos, pick your fight—but the mode’s objectives float around just enough to be annoying without feeling dynamic. Vehicles and helis add mobility, sure, yet fights devolve into disconnected pockets. If you’re fresh to CoD, Skirmish might be a nice warm-up. As a veteran, it felt like noise. I did my time and went back to 6v6 and Overload without a second thought.

Loadouts, bloat, and some genuinely helpful QoL

CoD’s loadout labyrinth isn’t getting any smaller, and BO7 throws Overclock upgrades into the stew for both gear and scorestreaks. But two changes deserve real praise. First, loadout codes: being able to share a complete build with a friend (or shamelessly yoink one from a streamer) by pasting a single code is such an obvious win. Second, the killcam “copy build” button is diabolically good. The moment you get beamed by something nasty, one press and that exact setup pings your notifications for later. Less time in menus, more time feeding your K/D addiction.

On the less fun side, some of the calling cards and cosmetic art have that telltale “is this generative?” sheen. I’m not a fan of big-budget games nudging AI into the pipeline for art, and seeing it pop up in rewards dampens the vibe. To Treyarch’s credit, nothing in the main game art or VO jumped out as machine-made to me, but the calling card gallery definitely made me squint.

Performance, feel, and audio

On PS5, the 120Hz mode felt great—clean frame pacing, responsive input, and minimal hitching even on frantic Overload pushes. PC was silky as long as I let shaders compile fully; the first boot hiccups smoothed out after one match. Netcode felt consistent in 6v6, with the usual outliers when SBMM tosses you overseas. Footstep audio has bite without being MW2019-loud, and I appreciated that occlusion helps you predict routes. The “Headphones” mix is the move if you’re playing seriously; the default is a little boomy.

Time-to-kill sits in that sweet Black Ops pocket—fast enough to reward snap aim and positioning, slow enough that smart movement can save you. Aim assist feels sticky without becoming magnetic in close quarters. If you’re swapping between input methods like I did, both feel viable this year.

Specific moments that sold me (and one that didn’t)

• At 10 hours in, I pulled my first real highlight: Exposure, Search and Destroy, 1v3 clutch. I chained a wall jump into a shallow peek, caught the planter, and used the exit boost to break the trade. I don’t think I make that play in last year’s movement sandbox.
• In Ashes of the Damned, our truck run turned into slapstick: a zombified bear wiped two of us, the other two kited it into a Pack-a-Punch corner, and someone shouted “drive, drive, drive” like we weren’t stuck on cool-down. We survived, barely. We laughed for five minutes.
• Endgame at low combat score: we spent 20 minutes doing the chores, got greedy on the extract, wiped to a sudden swarm, and watched the progress bar reset. That was the moment I closed Endgame for the night and loaded Overload instead.

What works, what doesn’t (for me)

• Love: Wall-jumping in core MP. It rewards creativity without turning every match into trampoline mania.
• Love: Overload. It’s the closest CoD has felt to “sports with guns” since Uplink.
• Like: Ashes of the Damned and the extra Zombies modes. Familiar, but genuinely fun with friends.
• Like: Loadout codes and killcam copy. Menu time slashed.
• Meh: Skirmish. Great for new players, not sticky for vets.
• Frustrated: Invisible walls blocking logical movement spots.
• Disappointed: Campaign’s fixation on the past and a finale that undercuts the whole trip.
• Concerned: Generative AI art creeping into cosmetics. Not a deal-breaker, but not a great look.

Who should play Black Ops 7?

If you fell in love with BO4’s tempo or you crave expressive movement without full-on jetpack chaos, this multiplayer is for you. Overload alone justifies installing the thing if you’re a competitive head. Zombies fans have a solid, varied playlist to chew on—even if it’s more “best-of album” than a bold new sound. If you play CoD for the campaign, don’t expect BO6-level highs or a moving finale. Endgame might click if you enjoy PvE grinds and don’t mind resets, but it’s a hard sell when Zombies exists two menu tiles away.