The Call of Duty team uploaded a post to their official blog today addressing the negative discourse surrounding Black Ops 7 and promoting a free trial for the game’s multiplayer and zombie modes. Notably, a section of the message talks about the future of the series, stating that there will no longer be back-to-back releases for the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series.
Since 2006, the Call of Duty franchise has operated on an annual rotation of sub-series (e.g., Modern Warfare, World at War, Black Ops), with the pattern only being broken in 2023 when the same sub-series received consecutive yearly releases (Modern Warfare 2 then 3). “No more back-to-back releases” for Call of Duty’s two largest sub-series likely means a return to their product release pattern from before 2023.
Much of the talk around Black Ops 7, which was released this November to middling critic and user scores, has been around its low sales figures and player counts. In Europe, the game sold 50% fewer units in its opening week than its predecessor, Black Ops 6, which was released in 2024. On Steam, the game pulled 100,000 concurrent players together for its opening weekend, which is an impressive figure but significantly lower than the roughly 315,000 Black Ops 6 gathered. The release of Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders certainly hasn’t helped, with both games offering the kind of tough competition in the shooter space that Call of Duty doesn’t typically have near release.
