Black Ops 7 features an "evolution" of BO6's movement and wingsuits

We've jumped around the Call of Duty Black Ops timeline a fair bit already - the six games we've had so far have taken us from the Cold War to the year 2070 and back again, plus several spots in between. The upcoming Black Ops 7 lands on a near-future point between Black Ops 2 (which was set in 2025) and Black Ops 3 (which played out across the late 2060s), and clearly features lots of advanced tech, judging by last week's reveal trailer. This setting, combined with leaks and rumors, has led to many people theorizing and hoping that an advanced, Black Ops 3-style movement system would return for BO7. However, it's now been confirmed that there won't be that big of a gameplay leap, movement-wise, from Black Ops 6 to Black Ops 7, with no wall-running or jetpacks. However, it will feature an "evolution of Omnimovement."

Of course, Call of Duty's roots are in boots-on-the-ground combat, but for me some of the best FPS games the series ever produced arrived in the 'jetpack era' of the late 2010s. BO3, BO4, and Advanced Warfare remain extremely high up my personal CoD rankings.

However, since the start of the 'Warzone era' we've seen Activision's studios stick firmly to a more grounded experience. With its action movie-esque Omnimovement system, Black Ops 6 (my favorite game in the series for years) has felt much more dynamic than recent entries, thanks to its 360-degree prone, strafing, and diving. Judging by comments on the most recent CoD Pod episode, it looks like Black Ops 7 will take things a step further, but not as far as many speculated.

"What I will say is that the setting of this game is 2035, which means this is 30 years before Black Ops 3 and ten years after Black Ops 2, so it certainly has some big ties to BO2 as a result of that," senior director of communications Stephanie Snowden says. "But I can confirm, no wall-running, no jetpacks. But it will feature an evolution of Omnimovement."

While not having jetpacks or aerial boosts is unsurprising, it is a bit of a shock to see wall-running completely ruled out so early - although props to Activision for setting expectations this far out from the Black Ops 7 release date. A few weeks back, a wall-running mechanic was found lurking in Black Ops 6's code, which many theorized could be there for a special event or as an early dev test of a feature for this year's new CoD game. It'll be interesting to see what this actual "evolution" of the current system entails, given the near-future tech that'll be in Black Ops 7.

In response to a separate question during the podcast, Snowden confirms that players will be able to don wingsuits as part of a campaign mission. This was teased in a brief snippet of footage at the end of the BO7 reveal trailer, with many theorizing that it was players dropping into a new battle royale map.

However, this is a moment from Black Ops 7's co-op-supported campaign which will take place in Avalon, the heavily mentioned (and datamined) location from Black Ops 6. Judging by the scale of the mission you're dropping into, and the fact past datamines have shown Avalon to be a huge area, this will almost certainly be a more open mission with multiple objectives, and I speculate that it'll be reused potentially as a new Warzone map or as an open-world Zombies map.

Until we get to hear more about BO7, head into heated battles in some of the best multiplayer games and best war games around.

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