Black Ops 7 is packed with an obscene amount of content, but Treyarch promises it didn't just "add as much s**t as possible"

Black Ops 7 has a frankly ridiculous amount of content packed into it at launch, even by Call of Duty's standards. Deep breath. Here goes: A co-op campaign; Endgame, the replayable PvE extraction mode that acts as the campaign's epilogue; Ashes of the Damned, a round-based Zombies map that can be played in Standard, Directed, or the new Cursed mode; Zombies Survival mode; Dead Ops Arcade; 18 multiplayer maps, including remasters of classics like Hijacked and Raid; 11 core multiplayer modes, including newcomers Overload and Skirmish; Face Off variants of several modes; ten Prestiges and a thousand Prestige Master Levels to grind through after that; and more camo challenges, loadout unlocks, and store bundles than you can shake a melee weapon at. And I'm probably forgetting something.

That's also before you get to Ranked Play and any of the seasonal additions like new weapons, maps, modes, operators, events, and battle passes that'll arrive in the future. It's an almost obscene amount of content, but Treyarch and support studios like Raven Software are proud to be delivering 'the biggest Call of Duty ever' - a line that kept coming up during my time at a hands-on Black Ops 7 review event in London this past week. Even for some of the devs working on the FPS game, its scale is something of a surprise.

"We've already talked about developing Black Ops 6 and 7 together, but I think for me, it's like we didn't even recognize the scope of it," Natalie Pohorski, lead producer at Raven, tells me during the event. "We were so focused and dialed in on the modes that we're working on, and obviously a lot of us touch multiple modes, but I think we were so focused on what we wanted to do and what we wanted to deliver individually. And then we get into these playtests, and we're like, 'Whoa, we have done a lot here' […] it's more than what we even hoped for."

However, despite the colossal quantity, the studio is adamant that quality hasn't been forgotten. Miles Leslie, Black Ops 7's associate creative director, adds that none of the new, refreshed, or returning content has been shoehorned in for the sake of it, and that the vast volume is down to the devs' curiosity and eagerness to please everyone.

"One of the base questions [we always ask ourselves] is: 'Wouldn't it be cool?'" he says. "You start with one thing, and it's like, 'Man, wouldn't it be cool if we could use all the [campaign] abilities across Avalon?' And you're like, 'Yeah, that would be pretty awesome, actually,' and [so] Endgame is birthed. Or, 'Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could strip out a lot of the stuff in Zombies and make it hard as shit?' Yeah, that'd be cool: Cursed mode.

"It's not a conscious [decision to] add as much shit as possible. It's more about what is right for the game, that's fun, and adds enough variety. The goal of this game is to make it more social. And if you're out to make a more social and connected game, you need both ends of the spectrum. You need the entry point for new players, and then for the players that have stuck with you, you need something new for them, and you're just filling the bucket [with ideas]."

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 is out right now. Keep your eyes peeled for my final verdict on the game soon, and for more insight from my chat with Treyarch.