Following Black Ops 7 woes, Call of Duty finally sees sense and says no more back-to-back series releases

The criticism that annually released games are just '$70 reskins' or 'glorified DLC' is often pretty valid - as a long-time FIFA (now EA FC) player, it's a debate I've heard countless times now. However, in the past, I always felt that criticism was slightly unfair when targeted at Call of Duty. Sure, it's a similar formula each time, but there was always enough variation in characters, setting, weaponry, maps, and modes that the next game never felt totally rehashed. In recent times, though, I find myself struggling to defend CoD on that topic. The series' decision to do back-to-back Modern Warfare games and then consecutive Black Ops games over the last four years has been a questionable one. Now, with Black Ops 7 clearly struggling and falling below expectations, it's deciding to scrap that plan for the future.

"We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games," Activision says in a message to fans. "The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year. We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental. While we aren't sharing those plans today, we look forward to doing so when the time is right."

The post also acknowledges that the Call of Duty franchise has not "met your expectations fully" but says that it will "deliver, and overdeliver, on those expectations as we move forward." While there's no direct admission of Black Ops 7 underperforming sales or engagement-wise, it's clear from the fact Activision has even posted this statement that it's not doing great in the battle against FPS games like Battlefield 6.

Frustratingly, from my perspective as someone who leans more towards the multiplayer experience than anything else a CoD game offers, Black Ops 7 is the strongest entry in the series in years. However, so much of the content it's been packed with fails to resonate, and I think a main reason for that is that we've just had a similar offering with Black Ops 6. BO7 is also not helped by the fact it's an homage and spiritual successor to Black Ops 2, so once more, we're seeing a lot of revisited ideas. As you can see from my Black Ops 7 review, it was one of my main frustrations with its bizarre campaign.

I strongly disagreed with the decision to put MW2 and MW3, and now BO6 and BO7, together consecutively. With the Modern Warfare games, there was very little difference between the two, and MW3 brought us potentially the worst CoD campaign of all time.

With the two most recent Black Ops games, Treyarch has made it very clear that it started development on both games at the same time but with separate teams, rather than building BO6 and then repurposing its gameplay for BO7. However, all that approach does is ensure a weaker first game and a stronger sequel due to the amount of development time. Comparing the two, I'd say this is true for BO6 and BO7, but then people are already fatigued with Black Ops by the time you get to the superior game. This approach was destined to cause issues, and I'm just happy that Activision is turning its back on it.

Speaking to BO7 more specifically in this message, Activision says that it will receive an "unprecedented" amount of post-launch support, despite its early struggles. "We won't rest until Black Ops 7 earns its place as one of the best Black Ops games we've ever made," it boldly states.

It's also going to host a free trial alongside a period of double XP next week, so that skeptics can "experience the game firsthand and decide for yourselves" whether it's a good Call of Duty game or not. I highly recommend giving it a shot, as the multiplayer action is, in my opinion, the best since Black Ops 4, and overall, BO7 isn't the terrible game that a lot of people make it out to be.