Glenn Schofield, the creator of Dead Space and The Callisto Protocol, has announced his retirement after 35 years in the industry. In a LinkedIn video post, Schofield thanked his family, Electronic Arts and Activision, and "the people who supported us in videogames".

"The past couple of decades have been some of the greatest times in videogames," Schofield said. "Some of the best games have come out over these times, [from] some of the greatest talent in the world I've been able to work with. I thank you all. I had a front row seat to one of the greatest creative explosions in history, I think."

Schofield has been candid about the difficulties of securing funding, and getting games greenlit by publishers, amid the industry's post-COVID malaise. Following the release of 2022's The Callisto Protocol and his subsequent departure from Krafton's Striking Distance Studios, Schofield tried and failed to raise funding for "a new sub-genre of horror".

"People loved the concept," he wrote on LinkedIn in 2025. "We got a lot of second and third meetings. But early feedback was 'get [the budget] to $10M.' Lately, that number’s dropped to $2–5M." At the time, he said he may have directed his last game, and the industry has only become more ravaged since then, with huge layoffs at Xbox, Bungie, and Ubisoft in 2026.

Since shipping The Callisto Protocol and ultimately failing to make a new horror game, Schofield's focus has shifted to his visual art and AI. While he's no AI naysayer— he spent the bulk of his 2025 Gamescom Asia keynote praising generative AI as a creative tool—he was dismissive of Elon Musk's claims that xAI could generate a whole game from scratch ("he's full of crap", Schofield said.)

While Schofield is best known for Dead Space and three Sledgehammer Call of Duty games (Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare, and WWII), his credits list is long and reaches as far back as 1991. As art director, he's worked on titles as varied as The Ren and Stimpy Show: Buckeroo$! and Barbie: Game Girl. As a director, he worked on Blood Omen 2: Legacy of Kain and two Gex games.

Still, it's difficult not to associate Schofield with a period of big blockbuster primacy that kicked into gear with the seventh generation of consoles. For most of Schofield's career, every year's release calendar was reliably dotted by at least a half-dozen triple A behemoths. Evidence suggests those days are not coming back, at least not for western studios: tens of thousands of development roles have been shed since 2022, as the industry is eroded by the popping of the COVID bubble, ballooning development costs, lengthening production cycles, and the delusional goals of executives.

Factor in unprecedented hardware cost increases thanks to the AI industry's leeching of RAM and storage, and you can probably imagine how difficult it must be to stay optimistic as a game developer in 2026: especially if you were commandeering multimillion sellers 10 years ago, and still can't get a project greenlit.

Still, despite all available evidence, Schofield says the future is bright.

"This is an amazing industry with so many talented people," he said. "And I know times are tough right now, but man, the future ahead is really, really bright. And I wish you all the next generation of game makers the best of luck. Explore, experiment, enjoy. And don't forget that the most important thing is the idea."

Amongst all the news of brutal layoffs, studio divestments, and ironic task force appointments at Microsoft this week, over in the Call of Duty corner of the megacorp, something kinda cool happened. Activision released updated ports of Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010) and Black Ops 2 (2012).

They come with caveats, of course: At $40 a pop, the Call of Duty tax is firmly affixed to these elderly shooters. They're also PlayStation only, sadly, so the millions of fans who originally played them on PC are cut off from the reinvigorated scene. But they are nearly complete updates of those original games, now upscaled to 1080p, with few exceptions. Players were especially surprised to learn that even the emblem editor—a beloved and somewhat controversial feature of Treyarch's early games—made the cut.

Because, well, people are making swastika emblems with it. And depictions of 9/11. And Charlie Kirk's assassination. And a KKK member. And that's just all that fit into this tweet from influencer JakeSucky.

As you can see, the emblem editor is surprisingly powerful—its stock of primitive shapes, symbols, colors, and layers let dedicated thumbstickers depict just about anything. Most often, custom emblems ended up looking like the trash bin of an early South Park animator, but it was a regular occurrence to glance at a profile and be treated to a remarkably convincing Mona Lisa, cartoon character, or yes, something naughty.

I'm also quite surprised the feature made the cut. Even with player moderation, there's no policing photoshop, so a tool that allows for high expression assumes that sometimes your killer will flash you with cartoon racism. There are normal, cool, creative emblems being made as well, but in keeping with the Call of Duty community, terrible behavior is more the norm.

As others have pointed out, they should've done the work to let people turn off custom emblems entirely—there wasn't an option back in 2010 and there isn't one now.

Weirdly, the only major change to the ports is the omission of some modes. Wager matches are gone from Black Ops 1, so clearly developer Iron Galaxy did some surgery here, but you won't find modern options like FOV sliders or high refresh rates. Pretty barebones ports, all told.

Season 4 of Black Ops 7 brings the FPS equivalent of an easy chair into the game: a gun that essentially aims for you.

The update bolsters Black Ops 7's arsenal with several new weapons, including the rapid-fire VX Compact Assault Rifle, and the battle pass exclusive CBRS-3 SMG and KRS-7.62 Marksman Rifle. But it's Grimhawk that stands out. Available as a weekly challenge reward, this fully automatic rifle fires low-velocity rounds that home in on targets firing at you. Activision stresses that these are "light" homing rounds, so they won't do all the work for you. Nonetheless, supercharged aim assist is a pretty big advantage in a multiplayer FPS.

Alongside this, Season 4 adds a new mode called 'Black Ops Classic' which removes the Omnimovement system first added in Black Ops 6 while also featuring "streamlined" loadouts and a "throwback" map roster. That means no wall jumping, no sliding, no acrobatics of any kind.

Basically, it's Black Ops for FPS pensioners—old fashioned, sensible deathmatch with no larking about. You don't even have to aim properly if you've got the Grimhawk equipped.

On the subject of scorestreaks, season 4 adds a new one called "Iron Rain", basically a big drone that lets you track enemies on the ground and then pummel them with aerial artillery. It also adds a new 6v6 map called Primetime, brings back another Black Ops 2 map called Vertigo, and sees the return of the Gunfight game mode in 6v6 form.

Black Ops 7, Season 4 is available to play now. Personally though, my eyes have turned to the next entry in Call of Duty. Microsoft has formally raised the curtain on Modern Warfare 4, which heralds the return of Infinity Ward and has been cooking for four years—a long time in Call of Duty terms. Morgan Park got hands on with it last month, and while he wasn't sold on its map roster, he thought the gunplay was sublime. "In terms of raw FPS craft, this is immediately head and shoulders above the previous pair of Black Ops—games that look and sound fine. It really does matter who makes Call of Duty."

"We actually made a proper DMZ this time," said Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer creative director Geoff Smith to a room of press in May.

Last month I visited Infinity Ward to play Modern Warfare 4, the first Call of Duty in four years made by the studio that started it all. I had a fun time with what could be the best Call of Duty multiplayer this decade, but what I really wanted to try was DMZ, the new extraction mode that Infinity Ward talked up a lot throughout the day.

This is the studio's second try at extraction. The first DMZ, a mode within Modern Warfare 2 (2022), was an accessible but shallow take on the Escape From Tarkov-style extraction loop. It received updates throughout 2023 before getting placed on a shelf with innumerable other Call of Duty experiments. Now DMZ is back, and Infinity Ward ain't calling this one a beta.

DMZ quick facts:

• The map: Haijin, a war-torn nuclear exclusion zone on the border of North and South Korea with several towns and settlements
• You play as an off-the-books CIA asset, self-funded and tasked with finding valuable military technology
• Persistent gear: Loot extracted from Haijin can be sold or used for upgrades and crafting
• FOB: A hub that players upgrade over time with work stations and benches
• Story missions: DMZ will have story missions that take place during live matches
• Dynamic operations & Free roam: The other two ways to play DMZ. These sounded like repeatable missions with randomized steps that you can either commit to before a match or pick up during free roam.
• Loadouts: Gunsmith designs can be carried over from Multiplayer, but attachments have be purchased

"We've learned a lot about what resonates with players and what we were lacking in our beta. All of that knowledge and those action items became this foundation for us as we're shaping this new vision of DMZ from the ground up," Smith said.

"DMZ offers a rich standbox with escalating AI threats, dangerous bosses, environmental puzzles, raid-like operations, and narrative-driven story missions. It's really more than just a third mode. It's a full-featured game inside Modern Warfare."

To that end, DMZ has its own progression systems and inventories that don't touch 6v6 multiplayer. Operators that function purely as skins within 6v6 have distinct inventories in DMZ. Your Gunsmith setups do carry over, but you have to buy the necessary attachments to actually build them.

Another interesting tidbit from the presentation: DMZ will have a bounty system that takes your reputation into account. Killing a lot of players over time will eventually place a bounty on your head that other players within your match can take on. Global leaderboards will memorialize the top 50 killers and top 50 bounty hunters each week.

It sounds pretty substantial for what will likely be the third option on Modern Warfare 4's main menu. I didn't get to play DMZ, sadly, so jury's out on if it can find a place within my diet of Arc Raiders and Marathon.

DMZ will launch as part of Modern Warfare 4 on October 23. It will not be free-to-play.

Infinity Ward has once again promised that it will keep its skins and cosmetics thematic and grounded in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, a commitment that it has repeatedly asserted as part of the rollout for this anticipated return of Infinity Ward CoD.

The promise came as part of an exchange on X, The Everything App. User Hellz Broadcast Network shared an AI-generated image contrasting the speculative buttoned up, tacticool operator types of Modern Warfare 4's first season with the rainbow-colored, Nerf-armored counterparts players feel are all but inevitable from season 2 onward. The post garnered 23 thousand likes, prompting a response from the official Call of Duty account.

"We got the feedback. No BS," the official Call of Duty account replied. "This is all about staying true to Modern Warfare. No clowny skins for launch and seasons beyond." This echoes a similar statement from the official Call of Duty account just a few days ago.

The only problem? Activision said the same thing about last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 before introducing premium Fallout TV show skins. The Fortnitification of everything has been getting to us for a long time: Features producer Mollie Taylor wrote about it last August, but news writer Morgan Park has been banging this drum since 2023.

It's become a popular gripe among CoD's most vocal fans, and one has to wonder if that's been accompanied by declining skin sales. Odds are strong that there are well-meaning developers pushing for anti-wack skin promises before a sales or marketing department immediately makes them look like chumps, but the fact remains: Trust is low, and we'll believe it when we see it.

The frequency and vociferousness of the promises this time around has me optimistic, at least: Activision risks damaging its precious brand to renege at this stage. If you're gonna let people be the epic chicken from Family Guy or something anyway, the smart play would be to not say anything.

This is a big moment for the CoD empire: Modern Warfare 3 and back-to-back Black Ops entries have proven critical flops, and while they've still sold enough to make any other studio's wildest dreams come true, they've underperformed for the juggernaut series, and fan morale seems to be at a real low.

This all comes as Microsoft's been eager to see strong profits come from its historic Activision Blizzard purchase, and taking it out on beloved studios when they fail to materialize.

Modern Warfare 4 also faces a non-trivial obstacle in Xbox's continued status as a target of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. BDS has called for consumers to boycott all Microsoft gaming products⁠—including Game Pass and Call of Duty⁠—in response to Microsoft's business relationship with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Microsoft has instituted a leadership shakeup at its Israeli subsidiary and canceled a major contract offering cloud service support in the surveillance of Palestinians, but the company is reportedly still keen to renew its other contracts with the IDF.

Special commentary on this classic PC Gamer review provided by:

James Bond: Blood Stone review - PC Gamer issue #210 (US, February 2011)

From the archives: The review below appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and newly taken screenshots. By Tyler Wilde

Out of respect for you, the Bond franchise and the English language in general, I had planned to avoid using hackneyed puns in this review. Plan aborted. Blood Stone doesn't deserve bad wordplay immunity, and I refuse to give it a single quantum of solace. Well, maybe that's too harsh—it can have one quantum. Blood Stone isn't entirely un-fun, but it's no more fun than, say, watching Quantum of Solace. (Double zing!)

This licensed shooting-and-driving game was built by Blur developer Bizarre Creations, which is why I expected more going in. Most of the shooting follows a "find cover, shoot wave of dudes, move to new cover, shoot next wave" pattern. When enemies get close, you can drop them by triggering a motion-captured "Takedown" kill, and performing these earns "Focus Aims." Those really aren't worth going into. The best of the fighting is the few stealthy segments, which actually require a smidgen of care.

It doesn't break the game, but the camera is a constant annoyance. It seems to be attached to Bond's back via a limp bungee cord. Walking around is like steering a boat with half a rudder, and it's as awkward as describing something with three different metaphors.

Driving is better, but inconsistent. Some sections feel truly Bond-like—time slowed down as I sped under tumbling big rigs (without pausing to consider how many bystander deaths just happened). Other parts, however, contain multiple hairpin turns that'll end the chase if mishandled. Checkpoints are plentiful, but some took more tries to reach than was good for the enamel on my clenched teeth.

Shaky, not stirring

The action is justified by an original story by Bruce Feirstein, whose words have been uttered in three Bond films and two games. So it's a passable spy yarn about bioterrorists with names like Bernin and Pomerov. It's not bad, but it's not interesting, either. The voices of Daniel Craig (as James Bond), Judi Dench (as M) and singer Joss Stone (as the Bond Girl) advance the story in frequent, soporific cutscenes and phone conversations.

They're dull, but they offer a short, welcome break from the mediocre shooting, which is in turn broken up by hands-off moments meant to ensure that Bond's nick-of-time escapes look properly cinematic. All of that is better than the inane scanning and "hacking" of stuff with Bond's magic smartphone.

Blood Stone's five-hour campaign, like the world, is not enough. It also comes with three generic multiplayer modes, all of which leave out the best part (the driving)—but trust me: you don't care.

Welcome back to FOV 90, the best and only FPS column at PC Gamer. I've been busy preparing for the summer announcements season, which last week included a trip down to Infinity Ward to see and play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4. You can read my impressions of 6v6 multiplayer after a handful of matches, but the gist is that Infinity Ward still makes the best-playing games in the series, apex attachments are cool, and the maps I saw were bland.

I also sat down with two senior Infinity Ward devs—multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot and design lead Jacky Reynolds—to talk Modern Warfare 4 and all things Call of Duty. What follows is a transcript of our 30-minute chat, edited for length and clarity.

Topics covered include:

• The friendly competition between Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer
• Skill-based matchmaking
• How weird Modern Warfare 3 was
• Why Infinity Ward gets more time to make games
• "Ripped from the headlines" campaigns
• Apex attachments
• Aaaand "update requires restart."

PC Gamer: Thanks for making the time guys. To start, I'll say I play every Call of Duty, some more than others. I approach Modern Warfare 4 having a strong preference with Call of Duty. I always like the Infinity Ward games more. That's what I want to ask about: You guys recently said that Infinity Ward games "hit different." What does that mean? How would you quantify that feeling?

JOE CECOT, MULIPLAYER CREATIVE DIRECTOR: What I want to make sure we say is that this is not in any way to put down the other Call of Duty studios or anything. We have a history of really pushing ourselves on quality, and I think with [Modern Warfare 2019] we pushed really hard to reinvigorate the franchise. To go back to our roots and say "What is a modernized Modern Warfare for today?" And that's what we do with every game. It's something that permeates the whole studio in every department.

This is a little in the weeds of game development, but sometimes you have certain departments that are service departments, and others that are creative departments. At Infinity Ward, every department owns their stuff and is responsible for the quality of their stuff. So our gameplay programmers care, like you would not believe, about how good our gameplay feels. Our animators send out these sizzle reels each month that are like, "Here's the cool fucking shit we've done this week," and everyone gets pumped. We play the game every Friday, and we have these matches where we're screaming and having fun. We're very critical and measured that if we're not having fun playing our game, then we're not doing it right.

Do you think that philosophy has made Infinity Ward sort of the "tastemakers" of Call of Duty?

CECOT: What I would say is: With Black Ops, they have a flavor and they do it really well. And what we talk about in the studio is that it's actually really healthy for the franchise if the different lead studios are able to differentiate, so that you don't get the same game each year. So I think for us, we're always trying to level up ourselves, and I guarantee at Treyarch, they're also trying to level up—they're trying to one-up us, and it's a friendly competition. We're all trying to create the coolest, best first-person shooter each go-around, and I think you can feel it in Modern Warfare 4. We had a little bit of extra time with this one too, with the way the developments lined up, and so we were able to take bigger swings with weapon feel and hipfire accuracy and mobility.

JACKY REYNOLDS, MULTIPLAYER DESIGN LEAD: Yeah, and to elaborate as well, I like to think of Treyarch and Sledgehammer as different flavors of ice cream. There's strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate. They're all good, and they all taste a little different, and I think we're very interested in our taste and maximizing flavor.

It feels like Infinity Ward, in preferring its own flavor, doesn't tend to take aspects of the other series into its games. Like there's no ominimovement in Modern Warfare 4, no wall bounce. Infinity Ward tends to pare things down, right?

CECOT: We like that we have swim lanes. And again, it's what's right for Modern Warfare, right? We take it really seriously when we say we're a Modern Warfare game. Whenever I talk to audio or animation, we talk about how we're a fun game, but when you shoot someone, well I just took somebody's life. I just hurt someone. We want that authenticity and that feel. Everything's meant to be set in this setting, and because we do that, I think it makes the game feel more cohesive.

Those little touches are often my favorite parts of the Modern Warfare games, to the point that sometimes I feel like I'm playing a different game from some of the hardcore corners of the community. When Modern Warfare 2 came out, I remember that first beta where everyone was talking about red pings on minimap and nametags and muzzle smoke. You guys have clearly taken steps to mitigate some of those things that add flair, but aren't competitive. Is that a new philosophy for the team?

REYNOLDS: With every approach we try to learn lessons and move forward, and I think what we had pushed on [with Modern Warfare 2] was to make the game feel more tactical, but I think it came at the cost of the feel and some of the fun. So what we tried to do when building Modern Warfare 4 from the ground up was tackle these points of friction that make the game feel off or feel more sluggish. How do we improve on them? Rebuild them from the ground up so that you get that fluidity and that feel back, while also making sure that we maintain the kind of grit, groundness, and tactical play that we're known for. We really want to fire on all cylinders.

Of course we care about community and feedback, but we also want to take it further than just giving them what they want. When they complain about something, we ask what they are really talking about underneath, and how do we approach that problem and build it in a way that surpasses their expectations as well as our own.

CECOT: I think what I've been saying is with Modern Warfare 2, we made some changes that were maybe healthier for the game, the way it played, but created friction and removed fun for some players. So whenever we make changes in this game, the changes need to do both. They need to make the game healthier, but also make sure the game still feels fun, still feels responsive.

Can we take a moment to also reflect on Modern Warfare 3? Because that was a strange moment for the series. It was a subsequent sequel. It wasn't primarily an Infinity Ward game. The campaign was weird, and it also directly reversed several Infinity Ward decisions just a year earlier. How did the studio react to that when going into Modern Warfare 4?

CECOT: I think some of the changes that Modern Warfare 3 made actually felt good. And so we took a step back, we looked at our game, where we'd gone from MW2019 to MW2. We really want to make mantle feel good, not just faster. That's when we rewrote the mantle system and we made sure that one: it now maintains your momentum, two: you can now strafe in it, and three: you can mantle right into a slide.

Instead of just tweaking some numbers, we pushed hard into making it feel like an extension of movement, like you never lost control. For us it was a learning thing and it was also about taking the time. The nice thing is we identified it early, right at the beginning of the project, and said we want to do this.

You mentioned that you guys had extra time with this game. That's something that fans always wonder about: Does Infinity Ward just get to take more time with Call of Duty?

CECOT: It just worked out that way, given the strategy of launching multiple [Modern Warfares and Black Ops] in a row. So we looked at it as an opportunity. We said, "Okay, what are the big swings we're going to take to really improve the game?" And that's where the mobility stuff came from, that's where Kill Block came from, and the hip fire and all the fidelity changes.

One of the big swings from last year's game was limited skill-based matchmaking. Is that something that Infinity Ward is also interested in, based on how well it was received?

CECOT: We're always interested in matchmaking. We don't have any specifics today to talk about. What I can tell you is we are working with Demonware. They are heavily looking at and working on Black Ops 7 and reviewing how matchmaking is working there. There will be future communications coming out about matchmaking before launch.

[Activision PR chimed in here to let me know that Demonware, one of the many studios that collaborate on Call of Duty each year, handles all things networking for the series. That includes the inner workings of matchmaking.]

I also wanted to ask about maps. I like how it looks to climb pipes in Modern Warfare 4—it's very fluid, it's easy. Though in the few maps I saw today, it seems like where there was a pipe, there could have just been a ladder. I really like that shooting course you guys showed off because it had a bunch of verticality and dynamic angles. It was also a parkour map. Are there maps that feel more like that in Modern Warfare 4?

CECOT: There's no map that plays like the mobility course, because the mobility course is meant to just stress test movement. Our core multiplayer maps do have a variety of looks and feels. We have a map called Coal that I don't think you played that does have more verticality.

The pipe climb is a really interesting traversal mechanic that we use in our maps and feels like it makes sense in our world, and it's fun and fluid to use. But with core multiplayer maps, the most important thing for us is mostly the gunplay. It's not meant to be all parkour.

Modern Warfare has always had this "ripped from the headlines" attitude with its campaigns. I'm curious: As people, does this stuff get harder when the real world and actual headlines are almost as horrifying as the ones you guys write in campaigns? Has that affected how Infinity Ward makes a Modern Warfare story?

CECOT: We're an entertainment product, you know, and so even though the world is rough, there's still really great movies that deal with that content, and they provide an experience, and so we look at it through that lens. We're no different, right? I play games like World of Tanks, Arc Raiders, I bounce around all these different games where I get to roleplay as a different person, a different thing, a different place. So for us that's the modern military tier one operation, or the grunts.

When people see this campaign from the outside looking in, one thing they're going to say is that this is Call of Duty choosing a combination of countries that are not currently in the headlines, experiencing something horrific, because it's safer that way. As opposed to depicting the fake Middle East, for instance. Is that a conscious choice?

CECOT: Jacky and I aren't the best people to talk through campaign, but I would say: Korea was really interesting to us. When we look at these games, we do want to be "ripped from the headlines," we want to be hitting on pop culture and what's popular, and we want to be globetrotting, so we appeal to a wide audience. Whether it's Americans, Europeans, Koreans—all of that stuff goes into it.

I noticed we didn't talk at all about Warzone today.

CECOT: Yes. We want to talk about Warzone, but we're not ready to. Outside of that, it's very important to us. We worked on the original Warzone and directed that, so we're excited to share more about that. We just can't right now.

Part of me was hoping that Modern Warfare 4 would be a clean split from the Modern Warfare/Warzone marriage, because people have a lot of thoughts about what happens when those guns have to cross into other games, and if that actually works out.

CECOT: We have those thoughts too. We can't share any specifics.

So, apex attachments. If you've ever read one of my Call of Duty reviews, I always talk about how Gunsmith is cool, but everyone wants to make the same laser beam.

CECOT: Yeah.

REYNOLDS: Totally.

The only thing I really loved about Modern Warfare 3 were the aftermarket attachments, because they meaningfully changed a gun's behavior—defined its role. Does that also represent how Infinity Ward sees guns in Modern Warfare 4? Not just tuning sliders up and down?

REYNOLDS: I think it came from going all the way back to Modern Warfare 2 (2009) and CoDs from that era. You would look at a gun in the killcam, and it had a heartbeat sense and a silencer and was blinged out. You would go, "Damn, I want that."

I think that gaming tastes have changed, and the way building a weapon has changed over the course of the franchise, and apex attachments is really a culmination of that. We give you a new way to play with a weapon that you already know and love. And the idea is not to not make it more OP, necessarily, but to have a new toy to play with.

CECOT: It allows you to find new reasons to love the weapon you already have, and define your playstyle and your class even further than we have before. We wanted something at the end of the gun leveling process that says "this was worth it."

One of the best things as designers is if you make something where players think they're circumventing your system, or they're cheating or whatever. It's that kind of reward loop that we wanted, so that hopefully players want to get all guns to max level and have all the apex attachments.

I also like that having an apex attachment makes guns feel closer to a classic shooter, where you'd have a primary and secondary fire.

CECOT: Oh yeah, like Unreal. With the flak cannon and stuff like that. We've definitely leaned into that, right? Our underbarrel system has gone nuts.

I'm glad you guys said you're working on "update requires restart," because I was going to come in here and ask why Call of Duty is the only game that still makes me do this.

CECOT: Yeah, it's true. We hate it too. It is something that is being worked on. We want to kill it. This project, I think the only question is can we do it on the Switch 2 or not? But it is something we're absolutely trying to get rid of. We hate it too.

Thanks for your time, folks.

In recent years, Call of Duty has been suffering from what I lamented last year to be a severe case of Fortnitification—you know, just about every game you know and love amalgamating and morphing into a multimedia glob where some bozo from a TV show can gun down a real-life celebrity and then proceed to be revived by their teammate donning the skin of some anime protagonist.

While I don't exactly mind it in Fortnite, it always felt that little bit off in Call of Duty. Something doesn't sit right with me about setting up my loadout on Nicki Minaj, or a frighteningly realistic Levi Ackerman doing a 360 no-scope. I certainly cannot grasp what the hell Skeletor is doing there.

Well, it looks like Infinity Ward wants to walk back some of that baffling incoherence with Modern Warfare 4, which was revealed earlier this week. "Every aspect of Modern Warfare 4 is anchored in the game's narrative," a post from the Infinity Ward X account reads. "Every feature, every decision needs to feel authentic to what Modern Warfare is, and that includes cosmetics and collabs. We're committed to keeping it grounded and transparent, and we want to hear from you on what you'd like to see in our game."

That sounds like it's not ruling out collaborations entirely, mind. There's still room for some of that delicious crossover money to be made. But it seems like Infinity Ward is being more mindful about ensuring that whatever makes its way into the game is more tonally appropriate. Rather than, you know, Beavis and Butthead sniping you. For what reason? I don't know, man. I love Beavis and Butthead but I am perfectly okay with them not being Cornholio or needing TP for their bungholes anywhere near my shooters.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard this. Activision said essentially the same thing about Black Ops 7 in 2025, acknowledging complaints about Call of Duty skins and promising that skins will "be crafted to fit in the Black Ops identity." Five months later, Fallout arrived.

You'll be able to enjoy this more modern, transparent entry into the Call of Duty series when Modern Warfare drops on October 23 later this year. Our very own FPS fanatic Morgan Park got some time with the multiplayer mode recently, and while he's "not convinced it's a major leap forward" for the series, he's "confident that Modern Warfare 4 will be the best-playing Call of Duty in years."

The rumour mill is churning and this time we've got a two-for-one special, as word on the street is Overwatch and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is gearing up for a collab. Why, you ask? Well other than living under the same Activision Blizzard umbrella, some eagle-eyed fans have spotted an Overwatch poster in one of Modern Warfare 4's maps.

You can see the poster on the right-side wall of what looks to be a South Korean internet cafe. It may have been a slightly jarring sight at first glance, but to be fair, it does make sense. Modern Warfare 4 is set in present day South Korea, and seeing as Overwatch is such a widely played game here, the addition makes sense.

So the cameo makes sense. The only other question I, and many other players have, is whether it will just stop at that or if Activision Blizzard is gearing up for a proper collaboration between the two FPS games. Well, like the poster cameo it wouldn't be the wildest crossover, some players even have a laundry list of ideas which they'd like to see come to Overwatch if it were to happen.

"I NEED a D.Va skin where her ult line is changed to 'Tactical nuke incoming'," one player says. "Emre could have one where Chernobog goes 'AC130 above'." Other ideas include giving Soldier 76 the voice line: "Mission failed, we'll get em next time" or even just a generic Call of Duty skin—he is known as Overwatch's 'Call of Duty guy' after all.

But the most outspoken voice for this potential collaboration is none other than Conor McLeod, Hazard's voice actor: "Ok if we're getting a collab and Soap goes to anyone but the Scottish character, we are rioting. And by we, I mean me." That's not only valid, but also a good idea. I hereby throw my hat in the ring to join the riot if we don't get to see Hazard as Soap.

But this could also all just be wishful thinking. While I don't think Overwatch's vibe would fit into Call of Duty quite as well—especially after Activision promised skins would feel more "authentic to Call of Duty" going forward—I do think it'd be fun to see Overwatch heroes cosplay some of the most iconic Call of Duty characters.

It's the fall of 2022, and everyone is reacting to the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 open beta. Infinity Ward's reboot sequel made a lot of movement changes that seemed subtle, but angered a lot of folks. The idea was to make Call of Duty more deliberate and consistent by slowing down the action: unintended movement techniques were stifled, silenced weapons were hidden from minimap pings, and red nametags were gone.

I liked it. Most people didn't have a strong opinion about it. But Call of Duty's most active players resoundingly rejected it. Infinity Ward would eventually reverse some of these changes before launch, and the next year's Modern Warfare 3 (developed by a different team) scored points by moving in the opposite direction.

Speaking to PC Gamer in Los Angeles last week, Infinity Ward devs reflected on the gameplay changes that have come to define Modern Warfare 2's reputation.

"In Modern Warfare 2, we made some changes that were maybe healthier for the game and the way it played, but created friction and removed fun for some players," said multiplayer creative director Joe Cecot.

"What we had pushed on was to make the game feel more tactical," added multiplayer design lead Jack Reynolds, "but I think it came at the cost of some of the feel and some of the fun."

It's those learnings that informed Modern Warfare 4's revamped movement. Infinity Ward isn't bringing over wall bouncing or omnimovement from the last two Black Ops games, but it is embracing fluidity in sprinting, sliding, climbing, and mantling. Traditional mechanics, like red dot spotting on the minimap, are back. It's about refinement, not reinvention.

"What we tried to do when building [Modern Warfare 4] is take these points of friction that make the game feel off or sluggish and improve on them—rebuild them from the ground up so that you get that fluidity and that feel back, while also maintaining the kind of grit, the groundedness, and the tactical play that we are known for," said Reynolds.

Some of those changes, according to Cecot, were the result of Modern Warfare 3.

"I think that some of the changes that Modern Warfare 3 made actually felt good, and so we took a step back, looked at where we had gone from MW2019 to MW2 and said we really want to make mantle feel good, not just faster. So we rewrote the mantle system and made sure that, one: Now it maintains your momentum, two: You can now strafe in it, and three: You can now mantle right into slide. We pushed hard toward making it feel like an extension of movement—like you never lost control."

I tried Modern Warfare 4's rebuilt movement for myself, and while a handful of matches wasn't enough to fully judge the results, I did notice an emphasis on momentum. Getting around is effortless and cool. But my crowd was undeniably casual—the true test will be that inevitable open beta later this year, when the actual movement sickos enter the ring.

It's that time of year again. The sun is out, air conditioners are on, and the next Call of Duty is public knowledge. Activision announced that this year's game is, as we suspected, Modern Warfare 4. This is the first Infinity Ward-led Call of Duty in four years—a fact that matters to longtime fans who prefer the studio's approach to military shooters.

In a room full of press at the Infinity Ward offices last week, studio heads Mark Grigsby and Jack O'Hara introduced Modern Warfare 4's primary settings: North and South Korea. The campaign follows a squad of South Korean marines (plus one embedded American) in a "zero to hero" story in the wake of a North Korean invasion of Seoul. Grigsby and O'Hara were influenced by their love of Korean rap (featured prominently in trailers), and more broadly the spread of Korean culture, citing the popularity of Korean cinema and music in the West.

"Our cultures are melding and there's a lot of references there for all of us," O'Hara said. "But the curious thing about North Korea and South Korea is they have been deadlocked since the Korean War."

The next slide showed a map of the North/South Korean border illustrating the dozens of artillery batteries pointed at the city of Seoul at all times. This is the next iteration of Infinity Ward's "ripped from the headlines" approach to campaigns. That has often proven a double-edged sword for Infinity Ward, whose fast-and-loose depictions of reality once led it to recast blame for an American war crime. Perhaps in an attempt to temper Modern Warfare's edgy reputation, O'Hara expanded further on the mantra:

"We want to make sure that we live in this pocket that we call 'ripped from the headlines' when it comes to our universe. What that means is, when you see our game, you should feel like it could be in the headlines, not necessarily that it came from the headlines, but it could be."

It also wouldn't be Modern Warfare without Captain Price, who reenters the story on the run after executing a general at the end of Modern Warfare 3. I wouldn't blame you for forgetting or never seeing that major plot development, as Modern Warfare 3 was widely considered a low point for the series.

During the campaign presentation, some talking points seemed indirectly aimed at the unpopular 2023 sequel Infinity Ward did not make (it was actually developed primarily by Sledgehammer Games), as well as Black Ops 7's co-op campaign that was criticized for playing more like a series of Zombies arenas than a traditional Call of Duty adventure. O'Hara walked us through the premise of each of its dozen-plus campaign missions (including several spoilers), as if to communicate that Modern Warfare 4 will have a normal, linear story mode.

I also played around 90 minutes of Modern Warfare 4 multiplayer, which you can read about in full. Long story short: Infinity Ward is picking up where it left off in 2022. Ominimovement is gone. Wall-jumps are out. The audio is unbelievable, animation is top-notch, and they've sped up mantling and sliding to make twitchy players happy (boo). It's fun, but not at all surprising.

The third big mode of Modern Warfare 4 is a proper sequel to DMZ, Call of Duty's extraction mode that debuted in Modern Warfare 2 (2022). Activision is staying tight-lipped on details for now, but describes the mode as a "living combat sandbox" with "changing weather, dynamic military objectives, and hostile forces moving throughout the zone."

Modern Warfare 4 is out on October 23. That's a perfectly normal week to release Call of Duty, though this year it has the added significance of being a full month before the release of Grand Theft Auto 6.

This year's Call of Duty is, officially, Modern Warfare 4. It takes place primarily in South Korea, it'll have a regular campaign, and they're bringing back the DMZ extraction mode. But for many, Modern Warfare 4 is significant for one big reason: This is the first Infinity Ward game in four years.

That's the longest that the original Call of Duty makers have gone without making their mark on the series, and a lot has happened in the years between: Activision became an organ of Microsoft, which has been hard at work destroying its reputation with full-breathed AI mania and cooperation with Israel's genocide in Gaza. All the while, Call of Duty has fallen into another rut: Modern Warfare 3 was an unpopular, rushed sequel made by a different team. That was followed by Black Ops 6, which was well-liked, but its own quick followup Black Ops 7 immediately squandered that goodwill.

Those factors leave Infinity Ward in a similar situation as it was in 2019, when Call of Duty's relevance was waning and its Modern Warfare reboot singlehandedly revitalized the series. Will Modern Warfare 4 do it again? After 90 minutes with its multiplayer, I'm not convinced it's a major leap forward, but I am confident that Modern Warfare 4 will be the best-playing Call of Duty in years. A few quickfire topics from my demo:

Gunplay: Sublime

When it comes to the little things that are important to longtime fans, they're nailing it. Modern Warfare 4's audio, animations, and feedback are exceptional. I shot a revolver that was so loud that I flinched in my seat. Later, I test drove a bolt-action rifle so bassy and powerful that I temporarily became a sniper guy. Sometimes the yearly Call of Duty grind can get boring. I don't care about camos or stickers or even prestige, so for me, it's the fundamentals that elevate an FPS and keep things interesting for dozens of hours. I'm going to max out the revolver because it's exciting to shoot, not because of a checklist.

In terms of raw FPS craft, this is immediately head and shoulders above the previous pair of Black Ops—games that look and sound fine. It really does matter who makes Call of Duty.

Apex attachments: Very cool

Modern Warfare is finally embracing attachments that actually change a gun's identity. Similar to Black Ops 7's prestige attachments, apex attachments are sidegrades unique to each gun that unlock when it's fully leveled up. Each gun has at least one apex attachment, but some have two.

They're kinda wild. Examples include:

• A shotgun with explosive rounds
• A revolver with a grip that lets you fan the hammer
• A sniper rifle with side-mounted throwing knives that you "flick" at players
• A prototype North Korean silenced SMG that's quieter than anything else in the game
• An airburst launcher for the AK that can kill behind cover
• An SMG conversion mod for the M4 that brings back the P90-style magazine from MW2
• Ammo that spots enemies

Anything, literally anything, that makes attachments more meaningful than moving sliders up and down is a positive change, though I'm bummed that unlocking even one of these requires using a gun for a long time. They were all unlocked in the demo build and it was a blast to goof around with the airburst AK and the cowboy-style revolver. I also love that these attachments are designed for the specific weapons they were made for—a choice that could give guns a role beyond their weapon class. Apex attachments use their own slot in Gunsmith, so you won't have to sacrifice your favorite stock or sight unless there's an unavoidable conflict (like the attachment is itself a sight).

Movement: Fluid but maybe too fast

Infinity Ward talked a lot about movement. It feels so long ago now that we were all arguing about sprint speeds and slide cancelling in Modern Warfare 2, and the studio has been reckoning with that feedback behind the scenes for years. The result is a faster and less restrictive movement system than its last game—something closer to Sledgehammer's adjustments in Modern Warfare 3—but nothing as drastic or athletic as Treyarch's omnimovement.

Mantling is now extremely fast and fluid, so toppling over cars or climbing low walls now barely slows you down. Sprinting out of slides is smoother, and Modern Warfare 4 should be kinder to those who've gotten used to jumping or sliding around corners. That all sounds like a step in the wrong direction, personally—Call of Duty's map design and heavy aim assist make these techniques more annoying than expressive—but they weren't on display in my room of mostly press.

Maps: Meh

Pretty, but otherwise exactly what you'd expect. We played a handful of the 6v6 maps launching with Modern Warfare 4 plus one special Gunfight map with sections that change from round to round (more on that below). The standard maps followed Call of Duty's tired three-lane formula with only glimpses of verticality. Still, they at least feel closer to real places than Treyarch's maps tend to.

10v10 Gunfight: 👍

Like it says on the tin, it's Gunfight with bigger teams on bigger maps. Teams spawn with identical loadouts for single-life elimination rounds—clear the other team or capture a flag at the center to win. Gunfight might be the single best side mode Call of Duty has produced in a decade and it scales up well.

This is where we got to try Kill Block, a map broken up into one-third chunks that change between rounds. Many of these map chunks are based on classic Modern Warfare maps, so you never know when the center of the battlefield will suddenly be Crash from Call of Duty 4, or Killhouse, or a bunch of World War 1 trenches. It's a neat idea, and it apparently supports over 500 combinations. Infinity Ward mentioned that Kill Block will be used for more than just Gunfight.

Details: FOV, depth of field, muzzle smoke, hipfire

A surprisingly large stretch of Infinity Ward's presentation was focused on relatively small quality-of-life updates that were possible because of Modern Warfare 4's extra dev time. If they hadn't pointed this stuff out specifically, I'm not sure I would've noticed:

Enhanced FOV: This wasn't in the demo, but apparently Modern Warfare 4 will pull some camera trickery so players will benefit from the spatial awareness of a high FOV without making targets smaller on screen as a result.

Depth of field: Infinity Ward admitted that most CoD players turn off depth of field because the blurring effect on iron sights can also obscure targets. No longer: They've adjusted the effect so it doesn't do that, which sounds more like a bug fix to me.

Muzzle smoke/flash: Folks complained that Modern Warfare's muzzle flashes and smoke are too big and get in the way of accuracy, so now muzzle flash and smoke will subtly disappear at the center of the view to keep sightlines clear.

Hipfire: This one was a bit confusing. Infinity Ward says Modern Warfare 4 won't have recoil bloom. Bullets will always go where the gun is pointing. That made me think that maybe hipfire will be more accurate overall, but in practice, this seems to be largely a visual change: hipfire is as inaccurate as ever (subject to attachments), but your on-screen model will now always match where the bullets end up. Essentially, your gun shakes wildly to better communicate what's happening with recoil, which does make underbarrel lasers more useful.

Loadouts: One change I love

In Modern Warfare fashion, loadouts have been simplified since last year. Guns take five attachments, all of which have positives and negatives. It's a standard three perk system with no combo abilities or wildcards.

The only change worth calling out is one I'm surprised hasn't happened until now: both killstreaks and operator skins are equipped per-class. That means you can design a loadout around stealth, support play, or whatever, and then pick skin that matches it. It's a minor thing, but I can see the personalization making my classes feel more custom.

DMZ is coming back.

The Call of Duty extraction mode, which debuted in Modern Warfare 2 (2022), will have another go-around when Modern Warfare 4 releases in October. DMZ was among the first big-budget attempts at the extraction genre—three years before Arc Raiders became a phenomenon.

Activision is not talking in detail about the new DMZ, but provided a top level description to press:

"DMZ is the definitive Call of Duty extraction experience, a living combat sandbox where every deployment is a new story. Deploy solo or with a squad into a volatile conflict zone as an off-the-books asset tasked with recovering advanced military technology left in the wake of war. The conditions in the exclusion zone are always shifting, with changing weather, dynamic military objectives, and hostile forces moving throughout the zone. 

"Loot, fight, negotiate, betray, and extract with whatever you can carry. The harder you push, the harder the world pushes back. Every run is a risk, every encounter is a choice, and no two deployments play out the same way."

Not much to be gleaned from that other than "yep, sounds like an extraction shooter," though talk of being an "off the books asset" does make it sound thematically consistent with Escape From Tarkov.

The original DMZ had familiar elements of extraction shooters—gear fear, proximity chat, backpacks, contracts—but was criticized for lacking depth. It was casual, but bland, and you could tell it was more of an offshoot of Warzone than its own game. Infinity Ward supported DMZ with updates throughout 2023, but ultimately retired the mode, calling it a successful beta.

We do know a bit more about Modern Warfare 4's multiplayer, which I played at the Infinity Ward offices last week. It's not surprising, but Infinity Ward still makes the best Call of Duty guns.

Reuters reports that Microsoft has agreed to a $250 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by Swedish pension fund ​Sjunde AP-Fonden over allegations that, simply put, Activision sold out too quickly and too cheaply when it was acquired by Microsoft.

Microsoft dropped $69 billion on Activision Blizzard in the 2022 deal, a nice, hefty sum of money by any measure. But later that year, as reported by GameFile, Sjunde AP-Fonden—also known as AP7—filed suit, alleging the deal was rushed by former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in order to avoid fallout from reports of sexual misconduct at the company and protect his own massive payout from the deal.

Kotick filed his own countersuit, saying that the AP7 lawsuit was at least in part "aimed to help pave the way for [Swedish game company] Embracer to increase its foothold in the California market at the expense of Activision." Embracer said in response that it was "humbled" by the claim but denied it, adding that "we did not and do not need any help from a Swedish pension fund in competing with Activision." This all happened before Embracer's $2 billion implosion, remember, so it was still on a very big roll at this point.

Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now, because the $250 million settlement means it all goes away, including the countersuits filed by Kotick and Microsoft.

The settlement is not an admission by Microsoft, as explained in the following passage:

Microsoft is entering into this Stipulation solely to avoid the burden, expense, and distraction of continued litigation. Microsoft does not substantiate any allegations that there has been systemic or widespread workplace misconduct at Activision; that Activision senior executives ignored, condoned, or tolerated a culture of systemic harassment, retaliation, or discrimination; or that Activision's Board of Directors, including its Chief Executive Officer, Kotick, acted improperly with regard to the handling of any instances of workplace misconduct.

Plaintiff acknowledges that its original claims were based in part on media reporting and characterizations of allegations made by the California Civil Rights Department (the "CRD"), which the CRD itself admitted in a court-approved consent decree have never been "substantiated" by any "court or independent investigation" and now have been expressly withdrawn.

Plaintiff acknowledges that, based on the materials provided to date, there is compelling information which undermines any claim that the Board or Mr. Kotick failed to operate in good faith with respect to the matters alleged in the Action.

$250 million sounds like an awful lot of money, and, okay, it is. But it's also less than one-half of 1% of what Microsoft paid for Activision Blizzard in the first place; a relative pittance, in other words, the equivalent of adding an extra dime to the purchase price of Subnautica 2. Sure, you could use that dime for something else—throw it at a cybertruck, maybe—but are you really going to miss it? Probably not. So for the equivalent of some megacorp couch money, I imagine Microsoft is happy to finally put a pin in this.

The Call of Duty movie in development at Paramount will be directed by Peter Berg, one of the guys that studios call when it's time to portray the US military as big screen heroes.

Adapting the most popular military shooter in the world to film is seemingly the perfect gig for Berg, whose past work includes Lone Survivor, Patriots Day, and the adaptation of grandpa-approved board game Battleship. But the last time Call of Duty came up in his presence, before he'd been cut a significant check, he made it clear that videogames are a waste of time, and that those who play them often are "pathetic" and "weak."

That's according to a 2013 interview Berg did with Esquire, which was recently unearthed by a ResetEra thread and subsequently shared by GamesRadar.

In the Q&A-style interview, Esquire's Julian Sancton picked Berg's brain about masculinity, sports, and videogames (at the time, Berg was promoting his Navy SEALs movie Lone Survivor and had just released Battleship the previous year). When military games and Call of Duty came up, Berg didn't hold back:

ESQ: As a guy who's become a public advocate of American manhood, what's your take on war video games?

PB: Pathetic. Pathetic. Keyboard courage. Can't stand it. The only people that I give a Call of Duty get-out-of-jail-free card to is the military. They're out there serving and they're bored and they want to entertain themselves? Okay, maybe. Kids? Uh-uh.

ESQ: Navy SEALs have a standing invitation to your house in Montana, and you've spent a lot of time with them. Do they play those games?

PB: Some of them do. But I tell them I think it's pathetic. I think anyone that sits around playing video games for four hours... It's weak. Get out, do something.

Tell us how you really feel, Pete!

As Call of Duty isn't Berg's first adaptation, surely he knows how to set aside his feelings about the hobby to make a good movie, but it does suggest the co-writer and director probably isn't approaching the project with Call of Duty affection.

But hey, 13 years was a long time ago. Maybe he's eased up on games since, or even played a round of Warzone in the 2020 lockdown. If so, we could bury this beef once and for all with a 1v1 on Rust. Intervention snipers. Quick-scopes only.

New Xbox boss Asha Sharma had some good and bad news for Game Pass subscribers yesterday: the service is now cheaper, but new Call of Duty games will no longer be included with the service at release. They'll now arrive a year later, around the time that they're inevitably replaced by the next Call of Duty.

The change is one of the first major shakeups from Sharma, who takes up Phil Spencer's mantle following a truly shameful year for Microsoft in which Xbox was the least of its fumbles.

Xbox's two-year run of giving away its single biggest money-maker to subscribers is over, which Activision seems keen to move on from, as Call of Duty's wider availability reportedly dealt a huge blow to the profitability of Black Ops 6 in 2024 and Black Ops 7 in 2025.

Reactions to the news among fans swung between disappointment and understanding, but among them was a specific request: "They should release all legacy Call of Duty games on game pass like today," wrote Stallion83 on X.

Perhaps not every Call of Duty, but a source at Activision told PC Gamer it plans to add more of Call of Duty's back catalog to Game Pass this year.

Currently, only the last handful of entries are available on the service's Ultimate tier—the oldest being 2017's Call of Duty: WW2. The availability of classics like Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops would be a genuine draw, especially because as the console and PC versions of many older games still go for $30 to $60 (and a few never came to PC at all):

• Call of Duty (2003)
• Call of Duty 2 (2005)
• Call of Duty 2: Big Red One (2005)
• Call of Duty 3 (2006)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
• Call of Duty: World at War (2008)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012)
• Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)
• Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (2014)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 (2015)
• Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (2016)
• Call of Duty: Vanguard (2021)

I had to double check, but yes, 2021's oft-forgotten Vanguard has also been forgotten by Game Pass. Maybe Treyarch's Big Red One (the even more forgotten version of Call of Duty 2 for the original Xbox/PS2) will finally gets its day in the sun.

The Call of Duty movie announced by Activision and Paramount in 2025 is set to come out on June 30—of, uh, 2028. No need to start standing in line just yet, I guess.

The two-years-down-the-road debut was revealed today on the Call of Duty X account:

Not much more to it, really, although I do note that there's now a Call of Duty Movie X account, which is where we'll presumably start to see movie-specific CoD news popping up. You'll want to follow that if you're interested in this flick.

We don't know much about the film at this point, but as PC Gamer's TV guy pointed out last year, it does seem to be moving ahead with speed and purpose. Less than two months after the initial reveal, dad TV maestro Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone, 1883) was announced as the scriptwriter, while Friday Night Lights series developer and Battleship director Peter Berg is set to co-write and direct.

But even with that dearth of detail, I don't think it's too hard to guess at what we can expect in the broad strokes: Something akin to Without Remorse, I would say, the Michael B. Jordan-starring Prime-exclusive tale of an unstoppable American hero caught up in a high-stakes conflict between the US and Russia—while the world sleeps soundly, blissfully unaware that its fate turns on the actions of a few hard men willing to do the hard things.

I joke (although I'm not joking about that, to be clear, that's pretty much Taylor Sheridan's whole thing) but I also dig war movies, and so even though Call of Duty really isn't my bag I'll no doubt watch this one when it's out. In 2028.

When I heard Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019 was back in the limelight thanks to an unusually steep $6 sale on Steam, I wasn't too surprised. Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare reboot was extremely popular in its day, reinvigorating a series that tread water through the mid-2010s and ushering in an era of followups that'd build on its reimagined progression and class systems.

MW2019 was the best these games had ever played, looked, or sounded at the time. Coming back to it now, it's obvious Call of Duty hasn't been meaningfully better since.

The first thing I noticed jumping into a match in 2026 (which only took a few seconds, as it's still popular) is how knockout gorgeous this thing still is. Like seriously, look at this seven-year-old videogame next to 2025's Black Ops 7:

Both look good, but Modern Warfare immediately wins on atmosphere. The cracks in the asphalt, the way those tree leaves are catching the light, the wildly detailed texture work on the aging buildings—what black magic was Infinity Ward up to making this work on an Xbox One?

Sound is still a standout, too. Assault rifles erupt with ear-splitting explosions followed by steel-on-steel cycling, and my kitted out revolver from launch sounds more powerful than its equivalent in BO7. Guns are appropriately loud in the sound mix—so loud that they can drown out the barks of the in-match announcer or interrupt the level-up guitar riff. Last night a teammate firing a Kar-98 rifle from behind caused me to violently flinch in my chair.

I'm reminded that this was Call of Duty redoubling down on grounded "realism" after years of wallrunning and jetpacks. Infinity Ward harnessed the immersive presentational qualities of a milsim within the confines of an arcadey shooter, and it's just as effective now as it was then. It's worth pointing out that this past streak of games helmed by Treyarch, Sledgehammer, and Raven just do not sound or look like this, even when it's clear they're trying to get close.

When folks say Infinity Ward's games are better made than Treyarch's, this is the stuff they're talking about. This game really checked all the boxes—excellent gunplay, memorable maps, sticky progression, and a campaign that doesn't suck (though that Highway of Death mission sure does).

Playing the last few nights, I'm taken by Modern Warfare's subdued Create-a-Class. You only get the basics—three perks, grenades, and two guns with five attachments. It's a bit limiting compared to the Swiss-army-knife-like monstrosities you can throw together in BO7, but that's appealing in its own way. When I can only modify a gun in so many aspects, I'm forced to embrace its intended strengths and weaknesses.

There's this observable pattern in competitive shooters with customizable guns, but especially Call of Duty, where everybody wants to create the same laserbeam. Whatever combination of grips, stocks, or barrels that lower recoil while juicing velocity or fire rate makes that gun objectively better, and therefore the most popular configuration. Modern Warfare's attachments are designed so that you can't boost those key stats without accepting tradeoffs in other areas like movement speed or ADS time.

Treyarch and Sledgehammer have loosened those restrictions on attachments in recent years, allowing up to 10 slots on each gun and mostly eliminating the downsides of making a laserbeam. The result is that every gun in Black Ops is pretty much the same. Modern Warfare isn't perfect in this regard either, but its launch lineup of weapons at least have standout qualities, like the M4A1's balanced damage and range offset by jittery visual recoil.

It's also nice to play Call of Duty from a time before it became a clown show of ugly skins. Modern Warfare still mostly looks like Modern Warfare, and it may be the last Call of Duty we'll ever be able to say that about. Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops 6 will be forever besmirched by Nicki Minaj, American Dad, TMNT, and The Boys collaborations. Even after committing to chilling out on the tacky crap in Black Ops 7, Activision has proven this was a flat-out lie, with recent collaborations including Fallout and Dave Chappelle (yikes).

The irony is that MW2019 is both the last great Call of Duty and the one that kicked off its new worst era. Back in 2020, just a few months after it launched, Warzone hit the scene. A year later, the reboot was forcibly gobbled up by the battle royale behemoth that Infinity Ward co-created before giving the keys to Raven and saying "see ya."

We're still in this period where "premium" Call of Duty multiplayer is intertwined with Warzone—sharing weapons, classes, and roadmaps—in ways that are frequently a detriment to both games. The ultimate example of this is the modern Call of Duty launcher: a slow, grating layer of annoyware that inflicts extra steps upon those seeking to play it.

The only mercy today is that MW2019 was eventually decoupled from Warzone back into its own standalone product, though for some reason you still have to select it from a smaller launcher that also includes Modern Warfare 2 (2022), even if you don't own it or want it.

It speaks volumes of this particular chapter of Modern Warfare that it's worth the launcher hurdle. Seven years later, this is still the Call of Duty to beat (in retrospect, even better than the sequel I gave a higher score).

I imagine this is the sort of rekindled excitement Activision was angling for with the big discount, as 2026 is Infinity Ward's chance yet again to drag the series it created back to the forefront.

The only way to make a decent April Fools' joke these days is pretend you're making something totally ridiculous and then actually make that thing. That's the route Treyarch took with its seasonal goof in Black Ops 7, which it unveiled today with an X post depicting a map no larger than a single room.

"Let's get ready to start the day!" the Treyarch account tweeted. At first I took this as a playful jab at Call of Duty's love for tiny, grind-friendly maps, but I figured it'd be prudent to boot up Black Ops 7 just in case.

Sure enough, there's a new playlist today called GRWM with just one map. If you don't subscribe to beauty creators, the name refers to the "Get Ready With Me" video format where people share their morning beauty routines. Instead of showing us how Alex Mason fights forehead wrinkles, GRWM crams an 8-player free-for-all lobby into what must be the smallest map in Call of Duty history: a walk-in closet.

It's as deliciously violent as you'd expect. Observe:

As a longtime hater of small maps, GRWM still charmed me. Unlike fan favorite maps like Shipment and Nuketown, where seasoned players camp corners to exploit terrible spawns and farm kills, this closet is so comically small that there is literally nowhere safe. You're lucky to survive two or three seconds.

The best and really only strategy is to start firing as soon as you spawn, aim for corners where other players appear, and hope to rack up a five-kill streak before someone does the same to you. One could argue this is Call of Duty distilled to its purest form: a performative battle where nobody actually cares about the outcome, because all that matters is points.

I expect players will glom onto GRWM mostly for its grinding potential—I leveled up twice over a single five minute match, though that progress is partly explained by my low account level. Still, I got 57 kills, so this is probably amazing for unlocking weapons and attachments. This map is so juiced that it may only stick around for April Fools' day itself.

When a casual FPS enjoyer expresses a preference for a particular feature of Call of Duty, they are unknowingly picking a side. The way soldiers run, how attachments work, the shape of the maps—seemingly minor details are live ammo in a 20 year war between factions of gaming's strangest fandom.

A normal long-running game series is likely to have a singular direction—a continuity or consensus that determines what present and future iterations will look like. When Assassin's Creed shifted from stealth action games to lite RPGs in 2017, that became the direction for all of Ubisoft's studios making Assassin's Creed games. Not Call of Duty: it has a coalition of 11 studios working around the clock to produce a $70 videogame every 12 months, and those studios are rarely on the same page. Activision's fiefdoms collaborate to varying degrees to get the job done, but its two lead studios have very different, often opposing ideas of how Call of Duty should look, play, and evolve.

As Call of Duty attempts to rebound from its weakest year in a decade, it's worth examining this unusual arrangement. Activision's stringent schedule and widening creative differences, now spanning two decades, have created a splintered series mirrored in its increasingly tribalistic players. It's the Call of Duty schism, and it's fascinating.

The divide

Generally speaking, there are two studios steering Call of Duty's creative direction: Infinity Ward, the OG creators of the series and Modern Warfare, and Treyarch, the creators of Black Ops. The pair have taken turns with their takes on the bestselling military shooter since 2006, when Treyarch was tapped to make Call of Duty 3 (as well as 2005's Big Red One) while Infinity Ward took extra time on the first Modern Warfare (2007).

While it's fair to say Treyarch was the "secondary" Call of Duty studio in those early days, Black Ops (2010) changed that. With its campy Cold War spy story, non-traditional guns, and party modes, Black Ops established Treyarch as the "fun" Call of Duty studio. Maybe it couldn't match Infinity Ward in terms of raw craft, but the first Black Ops was an even bigger sales hit than Modern Warfare, and distinguished itself by loosening restraints and not taking these silly blockbuster shooters so seriously.

I didn't know it at the time (being 14 and all), but this was the beginning of the schism. Black Ops is the first time I can remember heated arguments at school over whether this Call of Duty was better than the previous year's Modern Warfare 2—a talking point that defines Call of Duty discourse in 2026.

The specific design choices that folks argue over have changed alongside the FPS genre as a whole, but the core of the studio debate remains remarkably consistent. There's nuance to these perspectives, of course, and there are some who don't really care either way, but there's a much louder contingent of fans who firmly believe one studio is killing Call of Duty and the other is its savior. Let's talk about the two camps.

The Infinity Ward argument

Fans of Modern Warfare believe Infinity Ward's games:

• Look better
• Sound better
• Move Call of Duty forward
• Are more grounded and mature
• Produce standout campaigns

Those who prefer Infinity Ward's take on Call of Duty are likely to cite a higher qualitative bar. The Modern Warfare series tends to be less flashy and adventurous than Treyarch's Black Ops, but what you get in return are the best-looking and -playing versions of Call of Duty. Infinity Ward excels at the "little" things—weapon sounds, reload animations, bullet feedback—that make Call of Duty a fundamentally satisfying shooter. The Modern Warfare "level up" stinger is the iconic example:

This sticking point goes all the way back to the early 2010s, when a new Black Ops would arrive looking less impressive than the Modern Warfare that came before it, with the exception of Treyarch's superior fire tech. While Treyarch has narrowed the gap on sound and animations over the years (especially after it switched to Infinity Ward's engine in 2024) the difference is still plain enough to see that most Treyarch fans won't argue this point.

Modern Warfare enjoyers may also prefer the way Infinity Ward does a campaign, a style marked by international task forces, NATO alphabet barks, and Captain Price's dependable mustache. These, too, aren't as ostentatious as a Black Ops romp where characters hallucinate a zombie horde or infiltrate a Clinton rally, but deliver more grounded, often jingohistic fantasies—stealthy sniper missions, AC-130 bombardments, night vision raids in foreign countries, etc.

There's also no denying that Infinity Ward still sets the tone for Call of Duty's future. The first Modern Warfare established the series' blueprint in 2007, and even at the peak of Black Ops, you could argue Treyarch's games are largely variations on Infinity Ward's designs. When Call of Duty's relevance waned between 2016 and 2018, it was the technical advancements and excellent gunplay of the Modern Warfare reboot that reinvigorated the series.

Does Infinity Ward only achieve these leaps because Activision gives it a longer leash and more time?A fair question, but it nevertheless contributes to the perception that a new Infinity Ward game is a special occasion.

The Treyarch argument

Fans of Black Ops enjoy that Treyarch's games have:

• Faster movement
• Longer time-to-kill
• 3-lane multiplayer maps
• Better campaigns
• Zombies

The Treyarch crowd undeniably skews hardcore. Many are especially active Call of Duty players, streamers, or content creators who take the competition seriously and are hungry for evolution specific to their interests. Treyarch has recognized these interests throughout the Black Ops series, designing and marketing its games around gameplay adjustments for high-skill players: fast movement, expressive sliding techniques, double jumping, jetpacks, and most recently non-skill-based matchmaking.

A Black Ops enjoyer might believe the Modern Warfare games are too slow, low skill, or less balanced while championing the strides Treyarch makes toward consistent and competitive Call of Duty multiplayer: less visual recoil, standardized 3-lane maps, and detailed weapon stats.

In recent years Treyarch has also distinguished itself by taking Infinity Ward's Gunsmith customization system and expanding on it with "prestige attachments" that dramatically change a gun's behavior. Revolvers can become sniper rifles. ARs can have underbarrel flamethrowers. There are few rules.

The casual Treyarch diehard also appreciates the Black Ops series' playful playlists—Modern Warfare will sometimes indulge in offbeat modes, but it's got nothing on Black Ops mainstays like Prop Hunt, One in the Chamber, Sticks and Stones, and Gun Game. Then there's Zombies: the beloved co-op mode of Treyarch's creation that's ballooned in scope over time to have its own lore and dedicated fans, all of which has no equal in Modern Warfare.

It doesn't go unnoticed by Treyarch fans that when the Black Ops series makes universally popular changes, Infinity Ward might ignore or drop them in its next game. This contributes to the perception that Treyarch makes games "for the fans" while Infinity Ward only listens to itself.

What about Sledgehammer and Raven?

Sledgehammer Games also makes its own Call of Duty games. Or at least, it used to: For a time, it was the "third" Call of Duty studio slotted into the rotation to accommodate ballooning development times across the industry. Its first standalone project, 2014's Advanced Warfare, was popular, but its two World War 2-themed followups were not. Since Call of Duty: Vanguard, Sledgehammer has seemingly been demoted to support studio, assisting on and co-developing yearly releases.

Recently, Sledgehammer stepped in to co-develop Modern Warfare 3 (2023), a rushed sequel to Modern Warfare 2 (2022) that Infinity Ward wasn't involved with. It reviewed poorly and didn't sell much better, but it was popular with hardcore players for the ways it backtracked on Infinity Ward's decision to slow Call of Duty back down a year prior.

Raven Software is the other major series contributor. The storied FPS developer behind classics like Hexen and Star Wars: Jedi Knight was conscripted to full-time Call of Duty work in the 2010s, serving as co-developers on all of Treyarch's recent Black Ops games and battle royale spinoff Warzone. The studio has never gotten the chance to lead a project, but the influence of Warzone and its integration into "premium" Call of Duty has catapulted the series into a free-to-play juggernaut.

The studio imbalance

Sledgehammer's fate is emblematic of an imbalance within Activision's Call of Duty factory. What used to be a predictable two-to-three year cycle with clean handoffs between studios has become a mad dash to make whatever is possible by a deadline—a workload that has disproportionately fallen to Treyarch, Raven, and Sledgehammer in the 2020s.

Look at the last six years of Call of Duty and you'll see what I mean:

• Black Ops Cold War: Treyarch (lead), Raven Software (Campaign), Sledgehammer (assisting)
• Vanguard: Sledgehammer (lead), Raven Software (assisting)
• Modern Warfare 2: Infinity Ward (lead), Sledgehammer/Raven (assisting)
• Modern Warfare 3: Sledgehammer (lead), Raven/Treyarch/Infinity Ward (assisting)
• Black Ops 6: Treyarch (lead), Raven (Campaign), Sledgehammer (assisting)
• Black Ops 7: Treyarch and Raven (co-lead), Sledgehammer/Infinity Ward (assisting)

So far this decade, Infinity Ward has made exactly one Modern Warfare sequel while Treyarch, Raven, and Sledgehammer have upped their pace. This is not how it used to work and, I imagine, not ideal to the frontline developers.

When I zoom out, I see that Call of Duty has actually been on two cycles all along: once a year there's a new Call of Duty, and once a decade there's a point where that unrealistic pace catches up to Activision, and the series adopts a posture of desperation—new features are less new, old maps are added to new games to pad out a many-boxed roadmap, and player sentiment tanks. We've been at that point since Modern Warfare 3.

From the outside, it's an arrangement that seemingly casts Infinity Ward as the flagship studio afforded as many years as it needs to make the next evolutionary Modern Warfare, while Treyarch, Sledgehammer, and Raven are tasked with keeping the lights on with quickly-made sequels that suffer diminishing returns.

This setup may work for Activision, which gets to sell boatloads of $70 boxes every Fall without fail, but it further fuels the schism. Nobody can agree on what "peak" Call of Duty is, and what used to be fun changings of the guard are now treated like existential threats—Modern Warfare loyalists can't wait for Infinity Ward to be back in control, while the loudest Treyarch fans believe Call of Duty has been better off without them.

That makes 2026 a big year for all involved. Four years since Modern Warfare 2, it's finally Infinity Ward's turn again. This year's Call of Duty will presumably have had the longest development period in series history, and it's coming on the heels of a Black Ops sequel that not even the Treyarch crowd is playing. That sets expectations sky high: Will Infinity Ward revive Call of Duty once more, or prove that Treyarch has become its new masters?

The original World of Warcraft—no bells, no frills, no expansions—was a very special videogame. It was also occasionally insufferably annoying. Part of the reason it was so successful is because it was less annoying than the competition at the time, sure, but it also had some real stinkers when it came to quest design.

One of those stinkers is The Green Hills of Stranglethorn, a quest that tasks you to find a bunch of randomly-dropped pages at the behest of one Hemet Nesingwary. It is a major pain in the ass. Jeff Kaplan, who designed the thing during his stint at Blizzard, explains why to Lex Fridman in an interview this week.

"[The quest] holds a lot of emotional value for me because amongst WoW players back in the day it was unanimously hated as one of the sh*ttiest, most annoying quests," Kaplan explains. "But it holds a really special place in my heart, because first of all it was one of the few times I just wrote a short story that's actually in the game. It's me paying homage to Hemingway."

It was also, as he colourfully puts it, "the typical hubris of a junior game designer who thinks he's clever but is actually a dipsh*t. That's The Green Hills of Stranglethorn summed up."

The problem was, per Kaplan, that it was an "ant farm" quest—which is a conceptual term used to describe a designer playing god: "You're the game designer who's playing god and players are the ants in your ant farm and you want to see what they're gonna do (which is not the correct way to be a good multiplayer designer), but I hadn't learnt that yet.

"[It] was an ant farm design of 'I'm gonna write this (honestly probably pretty sh*tty story, I haven't read it since 2003 so god only knows if it's any good) … I wrote the story, and then I divided it up into all these different pages." Out of curiosity, I read it—it's a fun little Hemingway send up, nothing wrong with it. Probably not worth the quest, though.

See, there were a lot of problems with the mechanics of the quest itself—the pages didn't stack, and you could find multiple of the same ones, leading to a ton of inventory bloat and, if you were trying to do the quest on your own, complete and utter surrender to the RNG gods.

There were four pages per chapter, and you needed to collect all four chapters, leading to a total of 16 individual items that could clutter up your inventory even if you didn't have duplicates. Sure, you could compress the pages into chapters once you got all four of them, but—it sucked, is what I'm saying.

"It was kind of like that McDonalds Monopoly game where you have to have all the pieces or else you're not gonna win … I don't think that idea in a vacuum is horrible, but where this really fell apart was that the interface of World of Warcraft wasn't really set up [for it]."

"Players had very limited bag space. And as they're fighting in Stranglethorn Vale, I'm just sh*tting up their inventory with all these pages. They only needed so many! You might be unlucky and get like, three page fives, that're just junk in your inventory.

"That was my fantasy as a designer of like—and then they're gonna be social and meet each other and players are gonna be appreciative of each other! Eventually no-one did the quest, they just were super annoyed and went to the Auction House."

On the plus side, Kaplan says that "it not only became a way from me to learn from my mistakes—but because I was very open with the fact that I didn't think it was good, and that the quest had failed, it opened the door for us at Blizzard to be critical of our own work." Hey! Swings and roundabouts. At least it's not a 19-quest long chain about bees.

Overwatch co-creator Jeff Kaplan was the public face of Overwatch before he left Activision Blizzard in 2021. If you were interested in videogames between 2014 and 2021, it's likely you'll recognise his face. In a new interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, Kaplan details for the first time how and why he left Activision Blizzard, and it's not pretty.

The way Kaplan explains it, the good ship Overwatch started to buckle when unreasonable expectations were placed on the Overwatch League, a hugely hyped esports league founded in 2017 and closed in 2024.

"Where it got away from us is that there was a lot of excitement about Overwatch League, like too much," Kaplan said. "It got overmarketed to the people buying the teams. They went on this roadshow where they had a deck—and you can put anything in a deck, and sell anything—and they were pretty much selling the Brooklyn Bridge, that Overwatch League was going to be more popular than the NFL."

It got to a point where commitments made to Overwatch League and its "billionaire investors" started to interfere with work on Overwatch itself, or at least, the part of it the public played. This included the development of Twitch integration, spectator camera control, as well as skins in the form of team uniforms. In other words, the money people kept promising features that soaked up development resources.

"And so all your plans [for Overwatch content] at that point kinda go out the window," Kaplan said. "You're not working on new world events, you're not focused on Overwatch 2, you're just treading water."

Kaplan also describes how when Activision Blizzard wasn't able to meet certain investor expectations with Overwatch League, the onus would be placed on the dev team to make good. "I don't know how to phrase this in a way that's not damning, but there was too much focus on 'let's make lots of money really fast' and a lot of people got drawn into it," Kaplan said.

Eventually it wasn't just Activision and Blizzard who had financial stakes in Overwatch, but many other investors, all of whom started to express their opinion.

"Originally the business model was going to be that they [Overwatch League] were going to do in-person events, and there's going to be big ticket sales and merch and all of that. I think, really quickly, everybody learned we can't do in-game events when we have a London team and a Shanghai team… like, how does this work? So that fell apart super quickly. The merch was good but it wasn't going to be making NFL money, whatever insanity people thought that was going to be.

"So everybody [the investors] quickly defaulted back to, 'hey, didn't Overwatch make 500 million dollars just in the live game last year?' What can we sell, and what can you give us? That pressure comes onto the [dev] team, and [add to that] the pressure to ship Overwatch 2, and then all the care and love that we had for the live game and the live service—like let's make events, new heroes, new maps—we're losing all these resources."

Kaplan says that in 2016 and 2017, he felt in control of Overwatch and the direction of the game, alongside the product director Ray Gresko. "It felt like we were running Overwatch and we were very, very successful and doing a good job, and I think the fans were happy," he said. Overwatch League, despite the good intentions behind it, "ended up being an albatross".

In the end, after enduring the difficulties of managing Overwatch League expectations with development on the core game itself, Kaplan was sent over the edge by an exquisitely cruel meeting with the company's then CFO.

"What ultimately broke me and my Blizzard career was I got called into the CFO's office and he sits me down and he says—he gives me a date which at the time was 2020 and was going to slip to 2021, but at the time it was 2020—and he said: 'Overwatch has to make [redacted] in 2020, and then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of [redacted]' and then he says to me 'if it doesn't do [redacted] we're going to lay off 1,000 people, and that's going to be on you.' And that was the biggest fuck you moment I've had in my career, it felt surreal to be in that condition."

The redacted figures are due to a confidentiality agreement signed by Kaplan.

"As someone who's worked on a lot of games, made a lot of games, you get in these meetings where they're like 'Fortnite has 1400 people working on it, so if we just hire 1400 people and make it free-to-play, we'll make that money, right?' I had believed that I would never work in any place but Blizzard, I loved it, it was a part of who I was, and I thought that I was a part of it. And I literally thought I'd retire from the place. I never thought the day would come, but that was it. Luckily for Blizzard, that CFO is no longer there."

Dennis Durkin was CFO of Activision Blizzard from 2019 to May 2021; Armin Zerza held the role from then until 2025. Kaplan's departure was announced on April 20, 2021.

I've reached out to Activision Blizzard for comment.

After releasing in 2023 without many key advertised features, including a long-promised PvE mode, Overwatch 2 was eventually renamed Overwatch earlier this year.

They say that 2026 is the new 2016, and when it comes to my relationship with Overwatch, that is most certainly the case. I've fallen in love with the hero shooter all over again after its recent revamp—where Blizzard dropped the "2", gave us five new heroes to mess around with, and the promise of a year-long narrative arc that'll hopefully make up a little for its lack of previously-promised PvE content.

It feels bizarre to live in a world where I'm once again looking forward to booting up the game every evening for a few skirmishes, but I've genuinely been loving everything about Overwatch again. Well, except one teeny-tiny thing: Conquest, its grand, five-week event that seemingly expects me to min-max the absolute crap outta my playtime in the worst possible way.

I've found it a huge stain on what has otherwise been a very exciting and cool time to be playing this game again. It certainly doesn't help that the first week was mired by a progression bug that caused most people to be locked out of rewards—though that was something Blizzard thankfully fixed by doling them out anyway.

It's a strange event, honestly. Talon versus Overwatch, with two reward tracks and a set of dailies for each side. At the end of the week, whichever side was more popular gets an additional little reward sent out to everyone. It feels like a test of which side your loyalties lie, but it's an event that also actively encourages switching back and forth to claim everything you can. Something that's made even more obvious by Blizzard offering the "Double Agent" title to anyone who completes enough tracks on both sides.

Once you've nabbed the cosmetics for the week, you can then continue completing quests throughout the week for bonus loot boxes, with the rewards track culminating in one legendary loot box reward. That's a pretty sweet deal… but it requires a bizarre level of optimisation that it's making me not want to play for just how scummy it feels.

You can't conquer 'em all

That's because the event is set up in a way where you have to play every single day. Which is fine, broadly speaking, except that even then it's a complete pain in the ass. Four daily quests for 100 points each. Each reward takes 175 points to obtain. Don't feel like playing one day, or don't naturally hit a handful of challenges in your day-to-day play? Oops, good luck getting that legendary loot box.

Despite playing the game every single day last week, I came up to the weekly reset 50 points short of nabbing the legendary loot box. Why? Because I used up some dailies (which reset before weeklies) to finish up the Talon track, and then instead of switching to the Overwatch path when the weekly reset happened, I stuck on the same side. Which left me with a handful of completed dailies and scuppered my chance to nab the loot box from the start.

Should I have assumed I wouldn't be getting a fresh batch of dailies? Probably, but it's just one small part in how the whole event feels too tight, too restrictive. I shouldn't have to think this hard about getting some fun event rewards.

What should feel like a celebration of the game's grand revamp instead feels like a poorly planned attempt to force me to play in the hopes I'll stick around. Blizzard, I like your game. You don't have to exploit my inner completionist to get me online. You already did the hard part with your mini reboot!

I suppose the bright side to all of this is that my least favourite part of the game right now is fleeting. In two weeks, the event will be gone—and I'll inevitably be moaning about how I miss the drip-fed loot boxes—and there's a chance for Blizzard to do better with whatever it has planned next. Hopefully, in a way that doesn't require all of this annoying preplanning just to get some sprays I'll never use.

I still want them, though.

I gotta say, it's been a good time to come back to Overwatch. Five new heroes, plus all of the ones I missed out on in the three or four years I haven't been playing. The Sanrio collaboration that actually had me contemplating playing Widowmaker for the first time in my life. A renewed drive to play the first multiplayer shooter I ever fell in love with. Something I am most definitely going to continue to do now that Blizzard just announced a freakin' Nier: Automata collaboration.

These are certainly two games I never expected to come together—despite the fact that Nier has somehow managed to show up in just about every damn videogame I enjoy at this point. It has a whole-ass 24-player raid series in Final Fantasy 14, was one of the first major collaborations in my beloved gacha game Nikke, and 2B was even a guest fighter in Soulcalibur 6. But I dunno, I certainly never expected her, 9S, and A2 to make an appearance in the funny cartoon hero shooter.

Yet here we are, in the year of our lord 2026, and that is exactly what is happening. Despite the aforementioned Sanrio collaboration being very support-biased (four of the six skins were for support characters), that hasn't stopped Blizzard from doing the exact damn thing all over again.

As far as I can tell, this is what the collaboration looks like:

• Kiriko as 2B
• Vendetta as A2
• Wuyang as 9S
• Lifeweaver as Adam
• Mercy as Commander White

Listen, even as someone who's barely touched this game since Kiriko's debut I still know just how many damn skins this character gets. Do I love her as 2B? Not particularly—I saw a post pointing out that Illari would have been a fantastic choice, and I'm now mourning what could have been. I will admit that as a new Wuyang main I'm a little jazzed to see him as 9S, though he does seem to be Overwatch's collaboration poster boy at this point.

I do think that this collaboration could have been just a bit cooler though. Where is Emil? Imagine Zenyatta with an Emil head and matching orbs, or Wrecking Ball rolling around with that giant grinning Emil face. Bastion would have made a killer Pascal, and it feels criminal to see my most beloved robot fella missing from the pack.

At this point I'm convinced that support mains are the ones with the deepest pockets—and I say this as a support main. They're certainly highly favoured for these sorts of collaborations, and while I'm not too cut up about it, I do wish it had been a touch more creative.

Despite all my moaning, am I going to dump money on this when they land on March 10? I absolutely am. Spending my hard-earned money on Overwatch cosmetics? It truly is 2016 again, huh.

Diablo 2: Resurrected is a thorough revamp of Blizzard's classic high-speed clicking game, but since 2021 it's only been available to purchase via Battle.net. Not any more: Diablo 2 is now on Steam, which comes with two obvious perks: one, it is more easily compatible with Steam Deck and even has a Steam Deck Verified badge, and two: you can now access the game via Steam rather than boot up Battle.net.

But wait! You'll still need the Battle.net desktop app installed, according to the system requirements, and more obviously, you'll still need a Battle.net account. As with the Battle.net version, Diablo 2 requires a constant internet connection to play as well.

The Steam release compliments a brand new expansion for Diablo 2 available now, which is its first in 25 years. It features a new warlock class and a revamp to the dungeon crawler's nowadays quite clunky inventory management. Tyler Colp went hands on with the expansion.

It's great news for people who hate to juggle launchers. Sure, it only requires moving one's arm and pressing one's finger on a mouse button to open Battle.net, but still (and I'm being totally sincere here) it's very annoying. It's the kind of annoyance that has ultimately compelled big publishers like EA and Ubisoft to mostly give up on their own storefronts in favour of Steam.

It also helps that Valve increasingly has its sights on hardware, and that it's a great selling point that not only does Diablo 2 work seamlessly on Steam Deck, but that it likely will for the forthcoming Steam Machine as well.

If you are dedicated to Battle.net for some reason, Diablo 2 and its expansion Reign of the Warlock are also available there.

New guns are always going to be powerful when a new Call of Duty season drops, but some of the new weapons introduced in Black Ops 7 Season 2 are crazy strong.

Black Ops 7 Season 2 is filled with all-new maps and modes plus returning fan favorites like Safeguard and Slums, but the new guns available at the launch of the season are easily the stars of the show. The REV-46 SMG and EGRT-17 assault rifle are dominating lobbies right now, and upcoming changes could make them even more impactful to the BO7 meta.

Moving Away from the Maddox

If you played Black Ops 7 last season, then you've probably seen the Maddox RFB assault rifle in most of your matches. A returning weapon from Black Ops 4, the Maddox dominated BO7 with its close-range power and long-range accuracy.

The Maddox got nerfed during Season 1, but it's still one of the best assault rifles in the game. Now, Season 2's new weapons have taken its spot at the top of the food chain. With Season 2 balance changes coming later than usual so the development team can monitor weapon performance in the live game, the REV-46 and EGRT-17 are the best of the best for the foreseeable future.

Explaining the EGRT-17

The problem weapon last season was the Maddox, an assault rifle that shredded at close-range and could have basically zero recoil at long-range. This season, Treyarch added the EGRT-17, an assault rifle that shreds at close-range and can have basically zero recoil at long-range. See the problem there?

Granted, the EGRT-17 isn't as accurate as the Maddox at long distances. However, it's significantly stronger up close, so it just trades one thing for another.

The EGRT-17 boasts the second-highest fire rate in its class—losing only to the rapid-fire Peacekeeper—but it still has an easily controllable recoil pattern despite being a certified bullet hose. With the right attachments, it becomes a laser beam. The only thing holding it back is a slower-than-average reload speed, but that can easily be offset with attachments as well.

As if the weapon couldn't get any stronger, its bullets also ricochet off surfaces. If you prestige the EGRT-17, you then unlock an attachment that makes the bullets ricochet three times. That attachment also offers a huge improvement to both damage range and bullet velocity, which makes the gun even easier to control.

The Stock-Switching SMG

This season's new SMG is just as strong. The REV-46 is the fastest-firing SMG in Black Ops 7 by a wide margin, and that's just one reason why this gun is so popular in BO7 right now.

A weapon that can shred enemies at close range is already going to be strong in any Call of Duty game just by virtue of its fire rate, but the REV-46 has a unique trick up its sleeve: a folding stock. It's the only weapon in the game with a folding stock mechanic, and its stats change drastically depending on the configuration.

Using the typical fire-select button, you can retract or deploy the REV-46's stock at any time. With the stock folded, the REV-46 has unmatched handling with blazing fast ADS and sprint-to-fire speeds. Once you unfold the stock, the gun gains reduced recoil and a significantly tighter hipfire reticle.

It's the best of both worlds for SMG lovers, and the REV-46's prestige attachment sweetens the deal even further. Once equipped, the stock dramatically boosts movement and ADS speed while extended at the cost of some additional recoil. It's really not that harsh of a tradeoff, though, and it makes the REV-46 capable of both hipfire shreds and room-clearing strafes simultaneously.

Bringing Back Blackout

These weapons are already strong in their current state—and things could easily change once balance patches start to roll out— but the EGRT-17 and REV-46 make me really excited for something else on Season 2's roadmap.

Both guns are already proving popular with the Warzone crowd, but Black Ops 7 Season 2 is bringing back the fan-favorite Blackout mode introduced in Black Ops 4. Blackout beat Warzone to the punch by a full year, and it was a much more enjoyable experience for casual sessions.

Blackout was fast-paced and designed with fast-paced action in mind, so I can see the EGRT-17 and REV-46 sitting comfortably at the top of the new Blackout meta. It may not be a one-to-one translation of BO4's battle royale since this is being touted as a "new battle royale experience" that "draws inspiration" from Blackout, but if the core mechanics are the same, finding these two guns will be like finding a gold SCAR in OG Fortnite.

Blackout won't be coming back until Season 2 Reloaded, so there's still plenty of time for these guns to get nerfed into the ground. For now, the EGRT-17 and REV-46 are very much worth grinding the battle pass for.

The last few years have seen more videogame developers unionising in an effort to ensure the industry offers sustainable careers for all, and the quality assurance workers of Blizzard have just secured a huge win by ratifying a contract with parent company Microsoft.

As reported by Game Developer, QA workers at Blizzard's Albany and Austin studios have ratified a union contract after almost three years of negotiating. That sounds like an awfully long time to me, but it seems to be the going rate for union contracts with Microsoft—Raven's QA workers also took three years to get theirs sorted. Fortunately, it all paid off in the end, because now 60+ workers are covered by the new agreement and it offers them a number of significant benefits.

A statement provided by the Communications Workers of America—the union that represents the workers—confirms that the QA staff will have guaranteed wage increases; more regulations on AI and generative AI usage at work to ensure workers are supported, not replaced; protections on fair crediting; disability accommodations; immigrant worker protection; and restrictions on "mandatory 'crunch time' or excessive overtime hours."

All in all, this is a huge win for the QA workers at Blizzard. "At a time when layoffs are hitting our industry hard, today is another big step in building a better future for videogame workers at every level," says CWA Albany member and Blizzard Albany quality analyst Brock Davis. "For quality assurance testers, this contract provides us wages to live on, increased job security benefits, and guardrails around artificial intelligence in the workplace."

"This agreement gives us a better working environment with increased pay, benefits, and layoff protections that include recall rights and ensures that quality assurance work remains a stable and respected role for the workers who will build games long after us," says CWA Austin member and Blizzard Austin senior quality analyst Matt Gant.

Meanwhile, in France, five separate unions have called for a "massive international strike" at Ubisoft, and in the UK last year Rockstar faced legal action after firing more than 30 employees in a move the Independent Workers of Great Britain claims was "plain and simple union busting." Rockstar has denied the claim, saying the workers were fired for leaking secrets in a public forum.

It's a significant day for Black Ops 7. Not only has its first midseason update arrived with a grip of new maps and modes, but it also marks Call of Duty's first big brand collaboration since last year's dustup over the series' major uglification problem.

For the next few weeks, Black Ops 7 is all about Fallout. The half-season-long celebration coincides with the Amazon show's second season with operator skins for the main cast, themed modes, and a special Vault-Tec Nuketown makeover.

In the months before Black Ops 7's release, Activision addressed growing unrest with Black Ops 6's cosmetic output—which included particularly gaudy Beavis and Butthead and American Dad partnerships—by promising that Black Ops 7 would be different.

"We know there’s been a lot of conversation recently about the identity of Call of Duty. Some of you have said we’ve drifted from what made Call of Duty unique in the first place: immersive, intense, visceral and in many ways grounded. That feedback hits home, and we take it seriously. We hear you," the August 2025 blog post read.

"Black Ops 7 needs to feel authentic to Call of Duty and its setting."

If you took those words at face value, a Fallout makeover arriving in Black Ops 7's very first season is nothing less than a u-turn. Activision never specifically said partnered skins were out of the question, but it can't be reasonably argued that Fallout is in any way "authentic" to Call of Duty.

Notably, the about-face isn't inspiring the vitriol of the cel-shaded slop that stained Black Ops 6. Fallout is, apparently, similar enough to Black Ops 7's aesthetic that a few Vault-Tec jumpsuits and power armor suits aren't any more out-of-place than the selection of robo-zombies and spec ops guys already on the operator roster.

As such, the response to the update so far is a mix of excitement and indifference. That's thanks in part to the Fallout show's explosive popularity, and probably also the fact that CoD interest is down this year and only the most dedicated fans are engaged at the moment. I reckon the choice of brand also matters a lot. Perhaps Activision has honed in on the same middle ground Arrowhead has established with Helldivers 2: crossovers are embraced as long as they're a somewhat natural fit.

The FPS is once again in transition. It's a change that's been percolating for a while, but 2025 was the year a number of developing trends in PC gaming's favorite genre finally boiled over.

The time of extreme skill ceilings and the pursuit of metallic ranks defining every new multiplayer FPS is behind us. The escalation of gaudy, overpriced cosmetics created a distaste so palpable that Call of Duty had to desperately change its game plan. The two biggest shooters this year cost money, and there were no major free-to-play releases. The theme of this new era, as I see it developing so far, is remembering that shooters can be both casual and thrilling. High fun, low emotional investment.

An old guard of life-consuming live-service games remains a vibrant and popular part of this genre, but they're once again sharing the space with—and even adopting the attributes of—a more casual breed. Games that don't mind if you only play them once in a while. Games that let you make your own fun, encourage cooperation, or earn our respect by not bombarding us with ads.

Welcome to the FPS vibe shift. Here's how it happened:

Vibe shift: The biggest FPS of the year was Battlefield

I don't think any single event encompasses the changing attitudes of FPS fans more than the triumphant release of Battlefield 6, a game about large-scale chaos featuring zero ranked modes. The series that hasn't been truly relevant for nearly a decade came out swinging with guns, maps, and modes that appealed to the skillful yet unserious fun that the FPS genre once produced like every other week.

Flashback to 2018—the year Battlefield 5 released to indifference amidst the battle royale boom and continued dominance of hero shooters—and it's wild to watch sentiments swing back the other direction.

Battlefield Studios deserves plenty of credit for BF6's enhancements on the series, but I'd argue the appetite for Battlefield comes down to people burning out on the competitive games they've been playing for years and gloming onto something more casual and immediately rewarding. That, and a bunch of Call of Duty fans jumped on board, culminating in the best-selling FPS of the year.

Vibe shift: Arc Raiders won people over with wholesome interactions

Arc Raiders is not a first-person shooter, of course, but its unexpected popularity was more evidence of a vibe shift. Arc Raiders' slick shooting, surprising enemy AI, and fantastic maps make it good, but its unexpectedly wholesome community make it great.

The ways Embark tweaked the incentives of the Tarkov-style extraction shooter to make PvP truly optional and cooperation often preferable is a milestone for the subgenre, capturing the magic of early DayZ with slightly less potential for sociopathic fantasy. You can play it like an all-or-nothing deathmatch if you want, but honestly, that makes you the most boring person in the room. Instead, folks showed up by the millions for strange social interactions, pleasant exchanges, heartbreaking betrayals, and if you're me, roleplaying a medic. It is, in essence, the accessible extraction shooter, and also the best of its kind.

Vibe shift: People finally turned on bad cosmetics

Battlefield 6 was at the center of another big FPS development of the year: people finally got sick of terrible, overpriced cosmetics making every game super ugly. The boiling point happened in the summer, when a one-two punch of Beavis and Butthead and American Dad partnerships flooded Call of Duty with cel-shaded slop that underlined how detached the series had become from its military shooter identity.

The backlash was loud, and EA jumped on the opportunity to announce that Battlefield 6 was committed to "grounded" skins—though the shaky boundaries of that promise has since caused its own smaller kerfuffle. Battlefield 6 gained goodwill, and Activision saw where the wind was blowing: weeks later, it announced that Black Ops 7 wouldn't carry forward skins from past games and only feature cosmetics that "fit the world of Black Ops."

It was another sign that, at least in this corner of the hobby, people are recognizing how the profit-hungry habits of the live-service model can compromise a game's core qualities, like how it looks. A proper vibe shift.

Vibe shift: Competitive shooters added more variety, less sweat

This pendulum has been swinging for years now, but it sped up in 2025. FPSes that were once defined by their competitive scenes or notoriously high skill ceilings are broadening their horizons in an effort to attract a less sweaty audience:

• The Finals, which launched only with its complex 3v3v3 Cashout mode, debuted a casual 8v8 mode this month that's basically Battlefield Rush
• Rainbow Six Siege celebrated its 10-year anniversary by debuting a new primary mode with respawns and relaxed team rules
• Splitgate 2 un-launched out of beta, stripped out all the hero abilities and esports-y modes, and reemerged with classic arena shooter playlists
• Overwatch 2 debuted Stadium, a new main mode that injects chaotic, overpowered hero upgrades and entirely new abilities into its old format.

Vibe shift: Purely co-op shooters are going strong

I consider it a tremendous sign of health for the genre that purely co-op shooters are thriving. Folks are still playing Helldivers 2, last year's GOTY (in my heart), every day. It's not nearly as popular as it once was, but that's just fine, because folks show up for big updates and support the game if it's still great (which it is).

The same goes for Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, which got new classes and significant quality-of-life updates in 2024 and 2025, and Deep Rock Galactic, which remains a perennial friend group game ahead of its roguelike spinoff coming next year. Also, did you know tens of thousands of people still play Left 4 Dead 2 every day? Goes to show that if you make a truly great, replayable co-op shooter, you've got fans for life.

Vibe shift: People gladly paid for good, complete shooters

What do Battlefield 6, Arc Raiders, Helldivers 2, and Black Ops 7 have in common? None of them are free-to-play. 2025 was further proof that people will pay for great multiplayer shooters if they believe they're getting a "complete" product. It sounds obvious, but it's a standard that eroded at the height of free-to-play. We got used to games that debut with minimal content, but maximum microtransactions.

2025 gave us a bit of the opposite: Shooters that feel good and complete and valuable from day one. More of that please.

Dark Ops are a Black Ops staple, and they return in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with free rewards for multiplayer, zombies, and the co-op campaign.

By completing these secret challenges across all three game modes, you'll unlock special Calling Cards to show off your accomplishments. Some Dark Ops challenges are fun little easter eggs, but most of them require you to put in some serious work.

While some of the challenges are still to be determined, here are the ones we know for know.

BO7 Multiplayer Dark Ops Challenges

BO7 Zombies Dark Ops Challenges

BO7 Co-Op Campaign Dark Ops Challenges

As rivalries go, you don't get much bigger than Call of Duty versus Battlefield. Two of the largest, most expensive series around, both of them covering wars both past, present and future—of course there's going to be some competition.

David Goldfarb, who served as lead designer at DICE for Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2, even found ways to throw some punches in the script.

"Even lines I wrote in Bad Company 2, they're in a chopper and Sweetwater says, “He’ll just send some special ops douchebags with pussy-ass heartbeat monitors on their guns instead of us.” Something that directly references Modern Warfare. I did take the piss out of those guys, more than once. Not because I didn't like them, but because I did."

Goldfarb tells us that DICE pushed itself "to do stuff maybe you wouldn't do if they were not there". Particularly during the days of the first Modern Warfares, which he calls "tremendous games".

"I haven't ever seen that kind of shooter executed at that level," he says, "and I probably won't ever again. They were works of art, almost. We couldn't compete with that, so we had to do our own thing."

Call of Duty was looming over things even as Goldfarb joined DICE, too. "I came on to work on Bad Company 2 as lead designer, but that actually isn't what happened. What happened was Bad Company 1 got pushed back because COD 4 was as good as it was. So we spent more time working on BC1. And then I think I worked on Mirrors Edge at the end."

There was a negative side to the rivalry too, however, but that mostly took the form of pressure for the higher ups. "The negatives are usually, 'Well, we need to sell X units, and they're going to sell Y.'" And the competition meant that EA wanted DICE to do things "that maybe aren't the best things for the game."

Goldfarb is no longer at DICE, but the rivalry continues. This time, it looks like Battlefield 6 is in the lead, revitalising the long-running series while Call of Duty flounders a bit.

They should stop making Call of Duty every single year.

I realize that's a reheated take from like, 2014, but when is the last time you heard it said out loud? The yearly Call of Duty game is such a calcified constant of our hobby that, at some point, the people who used to say "they should stop making CoD every single year" just sorta gave up and accepted that series is as inevitable as back pain.

We pleaded to Activision to take a break, made our case that the 12-month cycle was unsustainable and diminishing, and Activision responded by doing the exact opposite for going on 20 years.

With the sort of "milk it dry" hubris that defined the Bobby Kotick era of Activision, the megapublisher decided it could outpace CoD burnout—outrun diminishing returns—by tripling down. More studios, more bodies, more CoD. CoD but battle royale. CoD zombies. CoD extraction. CoD on your phone. CoD but battle royale, but on your phone.

In 2025, Activision is essentially an apparatus of the Call of Duty machine—an all-consuming body of studios that once made original works, but have since been conscripted to ensure CoD every 12 months is still possible and profitable. Until recently, you couldn't argue with the results. CoD kept its pace through three hardware generations, evolving and reacting to the times while maintaining a quality floor high enough that you could always make the argument that your $60-$70 of value was there.

But not this year. The people who show up every 12 months are skipping Black Ops 7, and it's freaking Activision out. The game is less than a month old and the corp is already talking about how it'll do better next time—committing this week to stop releasing back-to-back CoDs in the same subseries.

"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," it said.

It's a statement that should embarrass Activision on a number of levels. For one, the megapublisher that usually only opens its mouth to brag about sales apparently saw BO7 engagement numbers so scary that it saw fit to publicly admit the last few CoDs were totally phoned in (something we already knew, of course).

Remember that this whole "back-to-back" cycle began to reportedly cover up a delay that would've forced CoD to finally skip a year—an assessment that Activision denied at the time. Since the suits above would sooner die than let that happen, a rushed Modern Warfare 3 reboot was forcibly shot out of a cannon just a year after Modern Warfare 2. It was the worst CoD in history, and marked the end of Activision bragging about Call of Duty's sales, pivoting instead to "record-breaking engagement."

Call of obligation

Those cracks in the machine have only got bigger over three years. Black Ops 6 was fine—fans liked that it wasn't more Modern Warfare, sprinting in all directions was kinda neat, and it was yet another thing to grind for 100 hours—but BO7 had that same MW3 stink from the start. The same maps, the same guns, and the same zombies with a '90s aesthetic swapped out for 2035.

You can feel that BO7 is just an expensive update to BO6—they're not even hiding it! They were even planning to port over all the guns and skins like they did in MW3 before the sheer ugliness of CoD's cosmetic output triggered a revolt.

But the most damning signal that the CoD cycle is truly broken is that the task of making a single Call of Duty has become so monumental and difficult that Activision's old strategy for reselling the same game every year—having a different studio do it each time in a different time period—doesn't even work anymore. Infinity Ward is taking four years to do what it used to pull off in less than two. Sledgehammer needed Treyarch to help finish MW3, and Treyarch hasn't made a Call of Duty without Raven Software as its "co-developer" since 2018.

Activision wants us (and its shareholders) to believe that its only mistake was giving us too much Black Ops or Modern Warfare back-to-back, but we all know the real problem: too much Call of Duty.

CoD could slow down. It should slow down. But before Activision resorts to that, it's doing everything in its power to convince us that's not necessary—that it's still innovating and earning our annual offering of $70.

This time, it didn't work. Maybe you can chalk that up to renewed competition: Battlefield 6 is demonstrating the benefits of actually taking a break and coming out the other side with a much better game. EA let Battlefield go away long enough for people to miss it, and that longing created the conditions for Battlefield 6 to be the biggest FPS of the year. This is not a new idea, it's just not how CoD has ever done things.

Activision won't let CoD go away long enough for anyone to miss it. Instead, it feeds off our constant attention and investment and interaction. It's a naked ploy for maximum value extraction that only works when people let themselves be suckers.

If, like me, you once loved CoD and wish it were still exciting, you should want that break. And the only way that Activision will ever actually do it is if we speak the only language it listens to: Stop playing.

The soft response to Call of Duty's latest release, Black Ops 7, continues to affect change in the long-running series. As announced on the official CoD blog today, Activision will no longer make back-to-back Call of Duty games in the same series.

The news comes off the back of a weaker than usual year for the franchise, which saw the release of Black Ops 7 just a year after Black Ops 6. Before that, it made a reboot of Modern Warfare 3 in 2023 just a year after its reboot of Modern Warfare 2 (2022). The repetition has created a strong sense of fatigue among parts of the player base, which Activision cited (indirectly) as a factor of today's decision.

"We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games. 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 blog reads.

"To be clear, the future of Call of Duty is very strong and we believe our best days are ahead of us given the depth and talent of our development teams. We have been building the next era of Call of Duty, and it will deliver precisely on what you want along with some surprises that push the Franchise and the genre forward. We look forward to welcoming you in, listening to you, and moving forward together."

While the company reinforced that it's fully committed to supporting Black Ops 7 with seasonal updates, the first of which is already underway, the tone of the announcement is in keeping with past acknowledgements that Activision got it wrong with Black Ops 7 and wants to win people back.

That process began before Black Ops 7's actual launch, when beta feedback led the developer to loosen skill-based matchmaking for the first time ever, as well as cancel planned crossover cosmetics plans to address CoD's ugliness epidemic. Committing to "unique" games every year is a positive step, but it stops short of confronting the real source of CoD fatigue: annual releases. As of now, we assume Call of Duty 23 is planned for 2026.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is one giant love letter to Black Ops 2, and that extends to its multiplayer arsenal. The Carbon 57 is an advanced version of the classic PDW-57 SMG from Black Ops 2, and it's just as satisfying to use over a decade later.

The Carbon 57 boasts a gigantic ammo count with respectable range and recoil, bringing it more in line with assault rifles than Black Ops 7's other SMGs. Its damage is a bit low compared to other weapons in its class, but the best Carbon 57 build still shreds enemies up close.

Best Carbon 57 loadout in Black Ops 7

Here's the build code so you can import it into your game: S05-DJPLK-6KAB5-1. Just open the loadout menu, select the Carbon 57, and select the little gun icon next to the "create new build" button.

This build focuses on improving the Carbon 57's handling and accuracy, transforming it into one of the most versatile SMGs in the game.

The 11" Greaves Repose Barrel increases the weapon's effective damage range and bullet velocity so you'll be able to hit far away targets easier. The EMT3 Agile Laser also provides a huge boost to damage range (and recoil stabilization), but you'll have a visible laser when aiming down sights.

To make the Carbon 57 easier to control, the K&S Compensator reduces vertical recoil and keeps your aim steady during firefights. The Dulcet Control Grip handles horizontal recoil control, and it also adds an extra bit of recoil stabilization to make the recoil pattern easier to master.

The Carbon 57 is still an SMG, though, so a few of these attachments boost its handling. The Sapper Guard increases your overall movement speed so you'll have an easier time dodging damage, and its small boost to horizontal recoil control is just the cherry on top.

The Hammer Platoon Pad increases your aim walking movement speed as well, letting you strafe around corners and prefire enemies to take advantage of the Carbon 57's large magazine.

Finally, the Accelerated Recoil System rounds out this build with even more recoil control. It's a must-have for most weapons in Black Ops 7, and the Carbon 57 is no exception. If you want a more close-range spin on this build, you can swap this out for the Enhanced Cycle System that boosts fire rate. Just watch out for the recoil.

Black Ops 7 Carbon 57 Class Setup

Gunfighter is one of the best Wildcards in Black Ops 7, and it's a necessity for this Carbon 57 loadout so you can fill all those attachment slots. You can run whatever Field Upgrade you like with this class setup, but the Assault Pack will help you keep your ammo reserves filled.

Stun Grenades fill the Tactical slot in this class setup. Stunning enemies will give you the opportunity to quickly finish them off around corners. If you get caught reloading, then a quick Combat Axe can save your life and score an easy kill.

Ghost is the best perk to run in the first slot since it hides you from UAVs, Scout Pulses, and other recon streaks, helping you remain undetected behind enemy lines. Lightweight or Ninja can also work in its place.

Fast Hands is also a must-have for this build since the Carbon 57's big magazine takes a while to reload. Finally, Dexterity will help you control your weapon while jumping and sliding around, a necessity with Black Ops 7's fast-paced movement.

Marksman rifles have always been a popular choice in Call of Duty, and Black Ops 7 has some really fun ones. The Warden 308 may not be as strong as the DMRs that gave Warzone players nightmares over the years, but it's still super satisfying to use.

It's equipped with a revolving cylinder that gives it a lengthy reload time, but it makes up for that with incredible damage and range. It can one-shot to the chest at surprising distances, and you can start grinding for its best attachments early since you unlock the Warden 308 at level 25.

Best Warden 308 loadout in Black Ops 7

Here's the build code so you can import it into your game: M02-66F1N-NJ753-1. Just open the loadout menu, select the Warden 308, and select the little gun icon next to the "create new build" button.

This build focuses on maximizing the Warden 308's mobility and handling, giving it faster ADS speed and sprint to fire speed so you can compete with everyone running around with SMGs.

To succeed with the Warden 308, you'll need a clear sight picture. You can use whatever optic you like, but the Lethal Tools ELO is one of the cleanest in the game. You can run something with more magnification like a holographic sight if you need more range, but the Warden is surprisingly capable with just a reflex sight.

For the barrel attachment, this build uses the 18" Invictus Barrel. It greatly enhances the Warden 308's damage range, saving you from those "how did I not kill him?" moments when the enemy is just a little too far away.

In case you miss your first shot, the LTI-LM Brake attachment in the muzzle slot will smooth your recoil. It primarily affects first shot recoil and kick reset speed, both of which are perfect for semi-automatic rifles like the Warden 308.

To further reduce recoil, this build uses the Baron Riser comb and Buffer Spring in the fire mods slot. The Baron Riser also slightly improves movement speed so you can keep up with Black Ops 7's fast-paced movement.

The 3MW Motion Strike Laser also helps control recoil while also boosting range even further. It's only visible when aiming down sights, so it shouldn't give away your position very often.

The Speed Latch Cylinder magazine reduces your overall magazine size, but it improves reload speed and enhances ADS speed and sprint to fire speed. Paired with the LTI Tyrannis Grip—which greatly increases ADS speed—the Warden 308 becomes a quickscoper's dream.

These attachments allow you to sprint around the map and score one-shot kills with the perfect balance between mobility and accuracy.

Black Ops 7 Warden 308 class setup

This class relies on split-second reactions to land one-shot kills on enemies with the Warden 308 before they start shooting back at you, and the equipment and perks will help distract your foes so you have more time to line up shots.

Gunfighter is a must-have for this build in order to use all the attachments for the Warden 308. You can make it work without Gunfighter, but it's really not worth the tradeoff for another Wildcard.

The Echo Unit is the perfect Field Upgrade for the Warden 308 since it can distract enemies and force them to shoot first, giving away their position so you can secure the kill.

The same goes for the equipment. The Point Turret serves the same purpose, giving enemies something else to shoot at so you can aim without interruptions. The Pinpoint Grenade also gives you valuable intel so you can line up shots before enemies come around the corner.

Lightweight is a great perk for this class since it boosts your overall movement speed and lets you recover from sliding and diving faster. You'll still be able to use all of Black Ops 7's fancy movement tricks without sacrificing accuracy for the Warden 308.

Fast Hands solves the reload time problem for the Warden 308. With the Speed Latch Cylinder Attachment, Fast Hands will be even more effective. Plus, you can swap to your sidearm much faster in a pinch.

Finally, Dexterity rounds out the perk selection by reducing weapon motion during jumps, slides, and other techniques. Just like Lightweight, it'll let you wall jump and slide around corners without sacrificing the accuracy needed to score those satisfying one-shot kills.

Activision's camo-clad cash cow Call of Duty has ruled the shooter roost for almost 20 years in the US, consistently topping the charts for games involving guns since 2006. But according to games industry analyst Mat Piscatella, that might just change in 2025.

Sharing some insights on Bluesky, (via GameSpot) Piscatella pointed out "the last shooter game to outsell Call of Duty in the US market over a full year was Gears of War, in 2006" according to data from the retail tracking service of his company Circana. He also noted that "The last FPS to do so was Star Wars: Battlefront 2" a year prior" and that Call of Duty "has been the US market's best-seller in 13 of the past 16 years" beaten only by Grand Theft Auto V, Hogwarts Legacy, and Red Dead Redemption 2.

This year, however, things might turn out differently. While Piscatella says we "still have some big weeks of potential sales to come," he observes that "this part of the market hasn't been this competitive in 20 years."

Indeed, the competition for Call of Duty's crown this year is particularly stiff. After a multi-year hiatus, Battlefield 6 has come back swinging by focussing on most of what originally made the series great, leading to 'the biggest launch in franchise history' as it sold more than 7 million copies in three days. This gave it better initial sales than both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

While the competition is squarely between Call of Duty and Battlefield, complicating matters is the surprise success of Arc Raiders. While not sharing quite the same scale of success as Battlefield 6, Embark Studios' extraction shooter nonetheless proved hugely popular, selling 4 million copies in its first two weeks of launch. The fact that it landed between Battlefield and Call of Duty has likely split the pack somewhat.

Call of Duty, meanwhile, has thoroughly biffed it this year. Black Ops 7 slumped to mostly negative Steam reviews thanks to a truly abominable campaign, all-too familiar multiplayer, and ongoing blowback due to its use of generative AI (something which didn't affect Arc Raiders in the same way, though it received similar criticisms). Nova Smith lambasted Black Ops 7 as "equal parts obnoxious and exhausting" in their Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Review, awarding it a score of just 40%.

There are, however, numerous complicating factors here. Circana's data reflects only retail sales, and does not factor in digital sales or players who might be playing Call of Duty on Game Pass. We already know that Call of Duty's presence on Game Pass impacts its raw sales figures, with Microsoft revealing in October that releasing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on the service led to $300 million in lost sales.

What we don't know, for sure, is how many people signed up to Game Pass to play Call of Duty. The most recent figure available for Game Pass subscribers is 35 million as of July 2025, but that was sourced from a LinkedIn post of a Microsoft project manager. The previous confirmed figure was from February 2024, where Microsoft reported that Game Pass had 34 million subscribers. If Game Pass has only grown by 1 million subs since Call of Duty was added to the service, that doesn't seem great, and unlikely to compensate for $300 million in lost sales. But we just don't know how accurate those figures are.

That said, there are other clues that Call of Duty has reaped a poor harvest this year. Normally, Activision shares some stats from Call of Duty's launch weekend on social media, such as last year's post the publisher bragged about having "the biggest Call of Duty three-day opening weekend ever". But hard numbers were conspicuously absent from this year's post. Instead, Activision simply thanked its fans, stated that it had seen "a great response to the quality and depth of gameplay in Black Ops 7", and stressed that "this is only the start".

Either way, seeing Black Ops 7 get trounced by critics and players alike cannot be reassuring for Microsoft, which, given the average time it takes to develop a game (4-5 years) hasn't had a chance to make its mark on the series yet since it acquired Activision. The company has held ludicrous expectations of a 30% profit margin from the Xbox division since 2023, which goes a long way to explain the company's mass layoffs, studio closures and game cancellations, as well as its desperation to get Xbox games on as many platforms as possible. Microsoft surely expected Call of Duty to contribute a big chunk of that, and if it isn't, I shudder to think about how the company might react.

It only takes a single mission in Black Ops 7's atrocious co-op campaign to figure out what the scheme with this year's entry is: welding together the campaign, multiplayer, Warzone, and Zombies modes, so as to streamline the asset generation pipeline and drastically cut down on the requirement for one-off assets and complex scripting.

This drive for efficiency is felt across the whole of Black Ops 7, but nowhere more so than the campaign, a grinding slog through the forthcoming Warzone map update and the occasional multiplayer map retooled for wave defense against mindless AI hordes.

The premise of the campaign itself is complete nonsense: after being dosed with the Cradle bio-weapon from Black Ops 6, Alex Mason's son has to retread the memories of his father (and, confusingly, his father's squadmates) through shared hallucinations. When Black Ops 7 does wander back onto a somewhat familiar path, it does so to retread the lives of series arch-protagonists Woods and Mason, remixing iconic locales and series highlights in the way that Disturbed covered "Sound of Silence".

Identity crisis

If Black Ops 7 has any identity of its own, it's from these setpiece moments, and they are far and away the worst parts of not only Black Ops 7, but the series as a whole. From Woods getting transformed into a Little Shop of Horrors-esque Venus flytrap to Harper getting blown up to kaiju-size to throw down easily dodgable shockwave attacks onto the deck of Black Ops 2's "USS Barack Obama", these gaudy Excision visuals-turned-boss fights are monstrously tedious, barnacle scum dredged up from the lowest rungs of the Destiny 2 barrel: shoot the weak points, wait until the boss deploys a shield, kill the adds as they filter into the arena, and then shoot the glowing weak point a million times more.

Black Ops 7's campaign awkwardly transplants most of its mechanics straight from Warzone: armor plates, weapon rarities, and a bafflingly long time-to-kill that degrades most encounters into a straight DPS race. Encounter design is particularly poor, and most often I was racing towards enemies hoping that their AI would bug out or get distracted so that I could mag-dump the contents of my light machine into their face.

I was no fan of Black Ops 6's campaign, but only a few hours with Black Ops 7 had me begging for the forced stealth sections and helicopter boss fights of old. Filling in for bygone campaign conventions like the classic helicopter door turret section is the ability to pick up and deploy multiplayer killstreaks, sporadic acts of mercy scattered around combat arenas that see fights end that much quicker. While cutting the tedium of these miserable encounters short is an appreciated relief, the result is a campaign that feels, more than anything, cheap.

Bereft of any unique encounters and devoid of the series' staple production value, Black Ops 7's gaudy hallucinogenic death march marks a brutal franchise low—one that other modes don't make up for. I played this in co-op across two monstrous sessions, streaming it for friends while playing with some randoms, and the silver lining here is that there is almost a "so bad its good" factor at play here.

My online co-op partners were all mic'd up and equally dedicated to putting this beast to bed as fast as possible, and the frequent moments of shared frustration, bafflement, and genuine shock that they could release something this bad led to more sanity-unravelling screaming than anything Alex Mason was subjected to vis-à-vis the Numbers Program.

The aesthetic weaknesses of the campaign aren't a compromise that allows for a boldly stylish multiplayer—across the board, Black Ops 7 is hideous. The near-future Call of Dutys have never been my favorites in the series, but one doesn't have to look too far back to find levels and maps that feel leagues more inspired than anything Treyarch is offering now.

Black Ops 7 is Call of Duty at its loudest and most obnoxious, made all the worse by sweeping usage of generative AI. The taint of this stuff is across the whole of the game—victory screens, calling cards, weapon skins, and even textures occasionally have that smeary Grok look placed front and center. For a game that already feels like a barebones production compared to the usual CoD spectacle, having to look at assets that resemble straight Grok outputs with zero cleanup makes the whole package feel shockingly cheap.

Never be game over

Upon wrapping the campaign, Black Ops 7 unlocks the endgame mode, a co-operative PvE exploration mode that takes place on what is absolutely the newest iteration of Warzone's map update. Dropping into the Mediterranean township of Avalon, you're left to awkwardly meander between PvE objectives, opening crates, looting gear, and choosing perks to up your odds against the increasingly difficult (read: tedious) combat encounters.

What really undermines Endgame is some brutal weapon and enemy tuning that leaves anything short of Legendary gear drops feeling all but unbearable in the hand. The campaign's issues with enemy AI and positioning are massively exacerbated in an open world space, and to compensate for how quickly enemy AI will break upon the exertion of the slightest pressure, the lowliest grunt to the most frail zombie has been given boosts to damage and health, requiring sustained full-auto fire to the head to put down. It's beyond exhausting, and with a map that fails to string together any of its zones in an interesting way, I can't see myself ever returning to Endgame.

Endgame's casual competitive counterpart, Skirmish, also failed to hold my attention. Even the sweatiest 20 vs 20 gunfights fail to evoke a fraction of the chaos of the most casual 16 vs 16 Battlefield 6 lobbies, mostly due to the decision to again jam Warzone's armor plating system somewhere it does not belong. The essence of Call of Duty is dead sprinting straight out of spawn and going on an insane kill or death spree. Where Warzone's high time serves as a safety net, Skirmish just feels like a waste of time, demanding greater precision and accuracy with a whatever arsenal of laser accurate recoilless weapons.

I'll cop to being a bit of a military otaku with an eye for accuracy, so this year's near-future arsenal update was already fighting an uphill battle for my approval. Even still, there was nothing here that gripped me—I appreciated the handling parallels between the AK-27 and the AK-47 of earlier entries, even down to the slim profile of the iron sights, but otherwise, BO7's arsenal feels like a real step back from last year's, nearly indistinguishable slabs of iridescent electronics and polished gunmetal. It's a dry roster in contrast to BO6. Even after twenty odd hours and fifty plus levels, the only gun I could name is the AK-27.

Better off alone

BO7 doesn't shore up its singleplayer deficiencies with a strong competitive offering, either. New mobility options in the form of wall jumps do little to complement maps that seem fundamentally at odds with an increase of vertical mobility. After 40-plus levels grinding out the mosh pit playlist, the only real utility I could identify for wall jumps was in some clever lane-switching to get up to the solar panels on the map "Raid".

Moreover, despite promises to reign it in, BO7's aesthetics are already compromised by the baffling decision to marry together the cosmetics of the Zombies mode and the regular multiplayer. At present, there are robots running around draped in human flesh and zombie hunting time travellers swan diving onto the decks of futuristic mining platforms—it looks nakedly ridiculous, and I was constantly gawking at how gaudy BO7's overall presentation is.

Zombies, is, near as I can tell, very nearly the same as it ever was. The addition of driveable vehicles is cool, but it feels like little more than a way to awkwardly transit from one overlong gunfight where you kite bullet sponges to another—and really, that description feels like it fits most of BO7.

Equal parts obnoxious and exhausting: All I could think while playing was, "God, was it really always like this?" And even if it feels like it sometimes, after years of these games hammering both your wallet and your senses, it's worth remembering that it wasn't. And with that perspective, BO7 becomes all the more irritating, and entrenches itself as a content ecosystem I desperately want to escape from.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 is only a couple of weeks away, but as we creep closer, the devs are still fine-tuning the multiplayer and campaign experience to ensure they're both as smooth as possible.

We've had plenty of patch notes and changes to this end. Treyarch has even changed the requirements for players to get into Endgame, opening it up to everyone. But now Matt Scronce, design director at Treyarch, has decided to go through some of the big changes in a dev diary, starting with aim assist.

"Aim assist is a big conversation and we have been closely monitoring that conversation, and of course, looking at our internal data, we're fairly happy with where we're at," Scronce says. "But we will be making some very nuanced changes and slightly increasing aim assist's strength over range ahead of Season 1."

The goal is apparently "to create a more balanced and competitive experience" by increasing the range of rotational aim assist. Although this comes with a new requirement: a player's right stick movement has to track an enemy for rotational aim assist to activate at its full strength. Which may work to balance out the aim assist strength buff, although the tweaks and changes with these features are usually so small that it's hard to tell whether it's even changed.

Scronce also touches upon other sore spots with Black Ops 7's multiplayer: "With spawns, we are always closely monitoring our spawn system and spawn logic across the board. We've got some big changes coming in Season 1. And then ahead of that, we're looking very closely at hardpoint free-for-all and team deathmatch spawns specifically."

Another big change will come in the form of a drone pod nerf. But, don't get your hopes up too high, as it doesn't sound like Treyarch has figured out all the kinks yet: "We have a ton of knobs and levers there, so we're still trying to figure out exactly how we're going to approach that. It may come down to reducing the number of drones or their flight speed, but rest assured, we are taking a close look at that one."

Other changes coming ahead of Season 1 include an increased visible range for the default minimap in multiplayer, weapon balances, and crash and stability updates.

Deciding to get healthier in 2025 came with no shortage of sacrifices I was prepared to make, but I did not anticipate one of them would be Call of Duty double XP.

It's been a good decade and change since I was last super into Call of Duty, but much like a churchgoer who only shows up for holidays, I still enjoy the little rituals: Scrolling past the campaign to play multiplayer with friends immediately, perusing the year's reconfigured perks, and accelerating the CoD relapse with double XP tokens extracted from a Monster Energy can.

I've been an energy drink fiend since high school—a fact that I'm neither proud nor ashamed of—but Monster was never a favorite. CoD season used to be the only time I'd pick up a can or two, but that changed this year when I switched to zero sugar drinks and discovered the Monster Zero Ultra line is one of the only bubbly energy options that doesn't taste like medicine. Lately I've been all about the watermelon flavor.

And that's exactly the can I planned to pick up at my corner store yesterday to score some meaningless Black Ops 7 goodies. Imagine my horror when I inspected my Ultra Watermelon can and failed to find a Black Ops 7 double XP QR code!

This couldn't be—I spun around not one, not two, but four other varieties of Monster Zero Ultra cans and found not one XP offer. This wasn't an updated stock issue. The regular old sugary Monster sitting one row above in the fridge? Overflowing with XP tokens.

Feeling emotionally manipulated, betrayed, and a little thirsty, I left my favorite corner store and walked another block to the Fastrip. Their fridge told a similar story. If I really wanted double XP this year, I'd either have to fall off the wagon or—oh wait, look at that, this store does stock zero-sugar Monsters with Blops 7 badges.

Two, to be exact: The Zero Ultra "White Monster" and Monster Zero Sugar (which is just the classic green flavor but diet, and had the lowest stock of them all). Unfortunately, I hate the taste of both.

I couldn't begin to tell you why the Monster Beverage Corporation, in its infinite wisdom, is excluding the majority of its zero sugar drinks from the Call of Duty promotion—just let me have my XP with a watermelon drink, come on man—but I can guess why the white flavor gets special privileges.

In addition to being the flagship Zero Ultra flavor, the drink was recently co-opted by women on TikTok, especially in goth and alt circles, as something of a carbonated accessory to their lifestyle. Thus, the "white Monster girl" trend was born. I won't begin to pretend I'm plugged in to the video-based social platforms enough to know if this is a particularly big deal over there or not, but I do know that this person made a suit of armor and bigass sword of out the flattened remains of white Monster cans (you can even see the orange Black Ops 7 logos). I hope they didn't drink more than one of those at a time, or at least pulled off the tabs and cashed in some of that double XP.

So I guess I won't be partaking in one of my little CoD rituals this year, which is kinda sad, but if it really mattered that much to me I could just steel myself against the overwhelming bubblegummy taste of a white Monster, or buy one and pour the contents down the sink. I won't be doing either.

Treyarch has taken some big swings with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 this year, and while not all of them have landed (what the hell is that giant dude doing in the campaign?), one has done a better job than the rest: the extraction shooter-style Endgame mode.

After finishing the campaign, players get access to a new mode, Endgame, where they can complete objectives, gain experience and loot and then exfil at designated points. The addition of extraction to the usual COD multiplayer blueprint is certainly interesting, but the only problem was that unless you complete the campaign or have a friend who has, you couldn't check it out.

That was until Treyarch made the recent change of opening Endgame up to everyone, no matter if they'd finished the campaign or not. "We've seen an awesome response to Endgame from players who've already been dropping in, so we're making it available to everyone in Black Ops 7 starting Friday, November 21," Treyarch says in an official social media post.

Soon, everyone will be allowed into Avalon to earn "unique weapon camos, and take on new threats". You and your squad can fight in escalating zones of difficulty and then can exfil to maintain your combat rating and loot.

But what if you've already grinded the campaign and got into Endgame before this? Don't worry if you have, you'll be compensated. "If you've already completed the co-op campaign to unlock Endgame, we're sending additional rewards your way," the post says. These include the following:

• 3x 1-hour double level XP tokens
• 3x 1-hour double weapon XP tokens
• 3x 1-hour double battle pass XP tokens
• 3x Perkaholic Gobblegums

Meanwhile, those who dive straight into Endgame will also get a few co-op campaign unique rewards as well a global XP and a dedicated camo track:

• Irides One M15 MOD 0 Blueprint
• Phantom Shadow SK Blueprint
• Razorfire Vertex Ryden 45K Blueprint
• Grounded Mason Operator Skin
• 55,000 XP

While I can't say I've particularly enjoyed the campaign so far, I am happy to hear that Endgame will soon be unlocked for all. This mode is by far the most interesting part of Black Ops 7 and one that I've wanted to check out for some time now, so for better or worse, I'll be checking it out when tomorrow rolls around.

Over a decade ago, when Minecraft studio Mojang was still a plucky independent outfit enjoying the fruits of developing one of the most successful games of all time, it unsurprisingly had a bunch of suitors. And one of them was Bobby Kotick.

Chatting on the Rushmore podcast, host Ari Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, asked the former Activision CEO if he'd played Minecraft (cheers TWIV).

"Yeah, I almost bought it," Kotick replied. "I had to spend five days in Stockholm with Notch, the guy who founded the company, and then we offered him $1.5 billion."

But then Kotick discovered that, while he'd be getting the company and Minecraft, he wouldn't be getting Notch or the leadership team.

"He said, ''Oh, by the way, I'm quitting, and my top leadership guys are all quitting.' And they only had 30 employees at the company."

Kotick didn't want to have to take the reins. "We can't run your company," he told Notch.

Not that it mattered, since Microsoft swooped in shortly after. "And then he called me and he said 'Microsoft offered me $2.5 billion for the company.' And I said, 'I'll go airplane shopping with you, but you've gotta take that offer.'"

It certainly worked out for Microsoft, and it turned out that Notch wasn't the secret sauce: the game continued without him and reached new heights.

Its cultural relevance may have taken a few dings thanks to games like Fortnite and Roblox, but its influence remains vast. Heck, even the dire Minecraft movie managed to gross $957,949,195.

And, of course, Microsoft now owns Activision, too. And it paid quite a bit more for it. When the acquisition was completed in 2023, the cost was $75.4 billion. Kotick and investors originally purchased the publisher in 1991 for $500,000.

Overwatch 2 has finally confirmed who Hero 45 is going to be, and the statue in Stadium's Colosseo map was right: the next hero will be a female gladiator called Vendetta who goes by the name of La Lupa, The Wolf.

Revealed in the Vendetta hero trailer, La Lupa shows off a couple of cool tricks that'll likely be part of her kit. While fighting a huge omnic in the Colosseo in front of a rowdy crowd, La Lupa uses her giant sword to take it down. She has a spin attack that launches an energy projectile, pierces its husk with a charged-up sword, and performs what looks like an ultimate as she cuts the omnic in half with a huge energy slash. But most of her attacks are melee, meaning this'll likely be her primary attack.

Vendetta is unfortunately a DPS hero, which is great for DPS players who want another melee hero to master, but I'm still convinced that she should've been a Tank . Heroes like Junker Queen and Doomfist have already proved that tanks don't necessarily need to be huge or have shields, as long as they can make and hold space, and it seems like La Lupa would be able to do this.

But the most interesting aspect of this hero was her brief flashback midway through the reveal trailer. Reflecting on all that her deceased father taught her, she ends with how it's important not to underestimate an opponent, as we see her dad, Antonio, fall out of a window, after being shot in the head.

This isn't just a tragic backstory wedged in to add some weight to the new hero, but a callback to one of my favourite PvE missions from seven years ago. Way back when in 2018 (I can't believe this is seven years ago now), Overwatch launched the second Overwatch Archives event, Overwatch Retribution, which saw Genji, Moira, Cassidy, and Reaper fight through omnic grunts to find a gangster—Antonio.

After a short exchange, Reaper ends up killing Antonio, much to the dismay of Cassidy, and then the team has to fight their way back out. This was notable as one of the nails in the coffin for Blackwatch and its members. We didn't have much story development for this thread until now.

The fact that Vendetta is the daughter of Antonio may mean this Blackwatch thread is opened back up, and may provide a good angle to dive deeper into Reaper's final days in the Overwatch team.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 came under intense fire last week, with players and developers alike criticising Activision Blizzard's use of generative AI to produce many of the game's calling cards. Now, US Congressman Ro Khanna has weighed in on the furore, calling for proper regulations on AI use in the wake of the controversy.

Responding to the social media post that triggered the debate on X (via Eurogamer) Khanna stated: "We need regulations that prevent companies from using AI to eliminate jobs to extract greater profits. Artists at these companies need to have a say in how AI is deployed. They should share in the profits. And there should be a tax on mass displacement."

This is not a new position for Khanna, who has been calling for regulations on how generative AI is both created and deployed in the US. In an interview with the Verge last year, Khanna provided a detailed explanation of his position on AI. He criticised both the datasets genAI systems are trained upon, pointing out that models up to that point had been "trained with generative AI on everything on the Internet without necessarily distinguishing what is true from false", as well as how the technology makes it easier to spread misinformation, and the potential labour issues arising from it.

It's worth noting Khanna's position on AI isn't wholly negative. He cited potentially beneficial use for AI, pointing out that "There was someone in India actually using AI to have a politician speak in 20 different dialects. That could be a positive use of AI— Ro Khanna speaking in Spanish and speaking in Tagalog and speaking in Hindi across my constituency." But he pointed out that in such cases, viewers should be made aware that "that’s AI generated and that’s not really me speaking."

Activision responded to the furore surrounding its use of generative AI late last week, stating that it uses "a variety of digital tools, including AI tools to empower and support our teams to create the best gaming experiences possible for our players" adding that its "creative process continues to be led by the talented individuals in our studios."

This hasn't stopped criticisms of Black Ops 7 from flowing in, however, with the shooter currently sitting at the lowest user Metacritic score for any Call of Duty game so far. Meanwhile, Black Ops 7's Steam rating currently sits at 42% positive at the time of writing, with players criticising its "Terrible campaign" and "boring and repetitive" Endgame mode alongside Activision's use of AI generated art. PC Gamer's Morgan Park agrees the game is flawed, though he praised its loosening of skill-based matchmaking in competitive multiplayer.

"When I first showed them the boost jump, are you kidding me? They almost threw me out of the room." Former Call of Duty director Glen Schofield is recalling the day he pitched Advanced Warfare's signature mechanic to Activision.

As the series entered its second decade, it had already begun to veer away from historical drama and behind-the-headlines espionage. Treyarch was developing drone swarms for Black Ops 2, and Infinity Ward had dared to kick off the singleplayer campaign of Call of Duty: Ghosts in space.

What Schofield was proposing, though, was something different: a futuristic moveset that would interfere with the fundamentals of CoD's sacred multiplayer component. Rather than merely providing novelty in the campaign, the boost jump would change the rules of competitive deathmatch, enabling players to reach high rooftops in newly vertiginous maps, and gain an edge through skilful combination of double jumps and mid-air dashes.

If the idea backfired—drawing ire from a community which had grown used to its annualised fix of familiar FPS action—then Activision would be facing a serious threat to its most reliable cash cow.

Nonetheless, Advanced Warfare's concept was greenlit. Schofield's studio, Sledgehammer, had proven itself by saving Modern Warfare 3 after many of that project's original developers had walked out to work on Titanfall. It had earned some goodwill. But Schofield didn't take that trust for granted.

"We started to work on the game," he says. "We knew that it had been approved, but they weren't happy with the boost jump idea. So we put it in one of our older levels." In the earliest prototypes, Advanced Warfare's movement included wall jumps, something that ultimately wouldn't arrive in the series until later iterations.

"It took a lot of time to make it fun to jump, and now you gotta work on shooting," Schofield says. "It was like building a brand new game from scratch, because you have a main character that now jumps. You have to do shooting in every single direction. So it was a big, big project."

Development was complicated by the fact that Activision's higher-ups, back in the early 2010s, didn't know what an exoskeleton was. The entire concept of the boost jump depended on the idea that future soldiers could leap around with greater power and agility, and absorb the impacts of long falls, thanks to their exosuits. "But I knew that Neill Blomkamp's Elysium and Edge of Tomorrow were coming out before our game, and they would let people know about what an exoskeleton was," Schofield says. "Finally, when Activision saw the boost jump with the exoskeleton, and then we showed them a couple of trailers from Elysium, they understood."

The publisher was blown away. But the boost jump wasn't where its reservations ended. Schofield had envisioned a world 50 years in the future, where tanks walked. "I had a rule on the futuristic stuff. Anything in it had to have a hypothesis or prototype or theory," he says. "What I did was, I actually went back 50 years in the past, and I looked at predictions, and they were all off. And so I tried to use that same amount of change here, but we have to multiply it a little bit more because of computers and everything."

Activision proposed a compromise: that Sledgehammer shave five years off its timeline and set Advanced Warfare 45 years in the future instead. "I freaked them out with the walking tanks," Schofield says. "They're like, 'There's no such thing as a walking tank.' I said, 'You've got little walking drones right now.'"

During the same period, Schofield scheduled a private tour at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in LA. "It was a rocket scientist who showed me around," he says. "It's near the end of the day, and he said, 'I'm going to show you something. A walking tank.'"

The tank, composed of chunks of metal and wire, was lowered before Schofield's eyes. "I got video," he says. "They put a drill on it, and it was supposed to go to asteroids. I thought, 'It'd be easy just to put a turret on it in 50 years.' So Activision finally succumbed to allowing some of this stuff."

Advanced Warfare launched in 2014 to critical acclaim, with some of the more grudging praise coming from PC Gamer. "Bluntly, movement in Advanced Warfare is less fun than movement in Titanfall, which has more liberal jetpack jumps, bigger, taller maps, and wall-running chains," Tyler wrote in our review. "Even so, the exosuits do make for occasionally fun cat-and-mouse chases as we hop around all over the place."

By and large, the community responded well to the boost jump. But in subsequent years, that public mood curdled as Sledgehammer's fellow CoD studios, Treyarch and Infinity Ward, followed its lead with futuristic movement abilities.

"They then put the boost jump in the next two games," Schofield says. "So now you have three in a row with the boost jump, and the fans got a little bit sick of it. Some people say to me, 'Hey man, you created the boost jump, but I didn't really like it in the third one.' I'm like, 'Well, yeah, that has nothing to do with me.'"

Schofield laughs as another memory occurs to him. "You know what Bobby Kotick said to me after people wanted the boost jump out? He said, 'You know Glen, I think you maybe over-innovated there.' Over-innovated! I took it as a compliment."

In the wake of that shift, Sledgehammer scrapped plans for an Advanced Warfare 2, and instead took Call of Duty back to its original stomping ground, the Second World War. Activision's marketing for Call of Duty: WW2 led with the phrase 'boots on the ground', an unambiguous assurance that nobody would be wallrunning through Stalingrad.

"By then, it was enough of the boost jump," Schofield says. "And I wanted something new creatively, actually—I spent three years on Modern Warfare 3, which was about six years in the future. And then you have Advanced Warfare 45 years in the future. So for me, going back into the past was a different creative challenge. The other ones are about imagination. This one is about taking stuff that was used and making it really fun. It was a research project for me."

In the end, the cancellation of Advanced Warfare 2 was a blessing. Advanced Warfare had made Kevin Spacey its villain, and Schofield believes a sequel would have been impacted by the sexual misconduct allegations that later engulfed the actor. "We're lucky," Schofield says. "We were going to go there, and I'm glad we didn't, because it was like two months before we would have shipped when the scandal broke."

Listening to the story of Advanced Warfare and the boost jump, it's clear that making a Call of Duty is a tricky—and at times thankless—balancing act of creative and corporate interests. But Schofield's lodestar was always clear. "The fans were who I made the game for," he says. "I call it creative math, but it's easy math to me. You want to please the stockholders, you want to please the executives, you want to please everybody in the company. And if I just make the fans happy, the stockholders are happy, executives are happy, everybody's happy. So you just do it for the fans."

My first night with Black Ops 7 went as well as expected. After scoping out the first few missions of the bizarre co-op campaign with friends, we hopped into 6v6 multiplayer, making a point to stick to the "open" playlists with "minimal" skill-based matchmaking.

As I feared after the open beta, Black Ops 7 is shaping up to be another weak year for Call of Duty multiplayer, shining a light on the series' streak of diminishing returns. Much like Modern Warfare 3 (2023) to Modern Warfare 2 (2022), Blops 7 is very much an expensive expansion for Blops 6: Guns now have sci-fi greebling and Titanfall angles, but behave the same as last year. Its big movement "innovation," the wall bounce, is barely there. Maps are plentiful and pretty, but remain in a structural rut so predictable in 2025 that you don't really need to play them to know their layout (it's almost always a box with three lanes).

Blops 7 is giving me every reason to hang it up early and return to Battlefield 6, except I've been successfully charmed by two things it does well: Loose skill-based matchmaking, and persistent lobbies.

I used to think the "anti-SBMM" crowd in Call of Duty was simply YouTubers and streamers advocating for a matchmaking algorithm that favors their own high skill. That is absolutely part of it, but there's a real argument to be made for the variety of random placement. After a three-hour session last night, Call of Duty's new low-SBMM initiative is, surprisingly, fine. Good, even.

A few matches were total stomps one way or the other, but most were fairly close, and interestingly, the presence of super sweaty players was unusually low—you can always identify them because they're never playing the objective but they are habitually sliding around corners and using the most hideous gun skins you'll ever see.

It took returning to older server-based shooters like Team Fortress 2 earlier this year to remind me that the FPS felt more casual before SBMM took over in the 2010s. When you only group together players who play like you, you end up with matches that feel exactly the same. Under the looser grip of Blops 7, matches were less predictable and consistently chill.

If open matchmaking is bringing out the normal side of Call of Duty once again, then it was a great decision to also bring back persistent lobbies, Blops 7's other big win, at the same time.

It sounds like such a minor background detail to automatically keep players together from one match to the next, but the effect is immediately apparent. Since most people stick around for at least two to three matches, you start to recognize the names on the other team, develop rivalries, and pick up on their habits. It's sort of like a classic server browser experience, but inherently fleeting.

Sometimes, persistence means the guy who made your last match hell is now your clutch teammate. Other times, you develop a wordless synergy with a stranger, or decide to stick around because your team is actually capturing flags in Domination. Occasionally, a lobby is just weird in a way you don't mind. Last night, one lobby was treated to a multi-part story from two high school friends recounting a fight that happened at school. Thanks to persistent lobbies the story wasn't cut off after a match ended, so I didn't miss the stunning conclusion where one of them ate pizza that night.

Jokes aside: Persistent lobbies are a big step toward Call of Duty becoming a social space again, instead of a series of isolated beatdowns. Of course, that swings both ways. Sometimes you'll find yourself persisting in a room full of people you'd very much like to avoid for one reason or another. For that scenario, Activision included a handy "Find a new lobby" button.

Is Blops 7 the best game in which to enjoy these "new old" features of FPS past? Hell no. Battlefield 6 also has minimal SBMM in its official matchmaking, plus a server browser that allows for always-on servers (when it's not buggy or filled with XP farms). It's the better game without a doubt, but Call of Duty deserves some credit for finally trying a more organic matchmaking method—one that flies in the face of its own internal testing that suggests players prefer SBMM.

In fact, it's remarkable that both of the year's big tentpole military shooters are prioritizing social play in ways that were quickly going extinct in the genre just a handful of years ago.

We have T-minus three days until Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 releases. Players have been gnawing at the bars of their enclosure to get back into the fray since the beta ended over a month ago, so I'm sure it'll come as a relief to many.

But there's not just a new multiplayer and campaign for players to look forward to—this time, Treyarch is also introducing Endgame.

There's no Infinity Gauntlet, and Steve Rogers won't be jumping into action. Endgame in Black Ops 7 is something very different. Once you reach the end of the campaign, you unlock Endgame, a replayable multiplayer mode set in a huge map made up of locations from the campaign.

"Avalon is this massive space, and we want you and your friends to continue to come back here," design director at Treyarch, Kevin Drew, says in a Dev Talk video. "We wanted to continue the campaign in a replayable way."

Fighting alongside up to 31 other players, your mission in Endgame is to wade through escalating zones and complete changing assignments with your squad, and then extract before time's up to keep your progress.

"This map is really special," level design director Phil Tasker says. "The team's been working on it for a really long time. They've designed it to be a cohesive space, but it's absolutely massive. We have tons of places of interest from previous games. We have maps from Black Ops 2, Black Ops 4, and Black Ops 6. You might even find a little piece of Hazard from Black Ops 1."

We don't have any specifics on which maps from previous Black Ops games will be used, aside from Hazard, but we do know that not all of them will be one-for-one remakes. "Some you'll experience just as they were in slightly new ways, and then some of them served as inspiration for totally new spaces," Tasker continues.

Endgame's concept has intrigued me, and not just because I'm a fan of some of the OG Black Ops maps. If Treyarch manages to pull this off, it may be the first time in a very long time that I'm actually excited to finish a Call of Duty campaign, and that would be priceless.

Have you seen this Battlefield 6 map? It's called Saints Quarter, and I wouldn't blame you for forgetting (or only now realizing) it exists. Until yesterday, I'd only played on it by accident.

Saints Quarter is an anomaly in Battlefield 6's map pool, because it's the only map that's exclusively infantry-only. The most popular modes like Conquest, Rush, and Breakthrough are incompatible with Saints Quarter, so you'll only encounter it in 8v8 playlists like Team Deathmatch, Domination, and King of the Hill. (If you also forgot Battlefield 6 had those modes, you're forgiven twice.)

I don't fire up Battlefield 6 looking for cramped city streets and small teams—it's all about the big maps, baby—but I have to give Saints Quarter credit. It's not my favorite Battlefield 6 map, but it might be its most successful.

In essence, Saints Quarters represents Battlefield Studios' best stab at the Call of Duty experience. It's designed top-to-bottom for 8v8, unlike every other map on the Close-Quarters Combat playlist that are literally just chopped up Conquest maps.

You can feel the benefits of that focus immediately: borders are clearly defined (no invisible walls), sightlines are tight, and there's no empty space where vehicles would usually be. Most of all, the map's geometry was actually designed around a handful of focal points that serve as Domination flags or KOTH hills—a central courtyard, a long side street, a corner stairwell overlooking a storm drain. They're equally spaced with well-considered sightlines.

Saints Quarters is, surprisingly, a darn good CoD map. Actually, it's even better than that, because your average Black Ops map is boring, and Saints Quarter is weird in a way that CoD hasn't been in a long time.

For one, you can actually breathe in it. It's the smallest Battlefield 6 map by a mile, but by CoD standards it's huge. It's got loads of buildings with second floors, destructible floorboards, and the whole thing is on a slope similar to Modern Warfare 2's Favela.

With its slanted streets, abundant alleyways, and stacked buildings evoking an old district of Gibraltar, Saints Quarter is a stark contrast to modern CoD maps. For years, CoD (and especially Treyarch) has been married to a "three-lane" map structure that, for some reason, dictates everything must be shaped like like this:

That's Exposure, one of the maps featured in the Black Ops 7 beta earlier this month. Yellow arrows are mine.

This is Imprint, another Black Ops 7 launch map. Would you like to run down the middle, left, or right? Or maybe mix it up by jumping between lanes at set intervals.

This is a birds-eye view of Saints Quarter in Battlefield 6 (yellow highlights are multi-floor buildings with destruction):

Way more dynamic. No matter where you are, you have options, and you have space to think. Notice how Saints Quarter is designed more like a circle players revolve around than a box with rigid paths? That used to be common in arena shooters like Quake, Halo, and even Team Fortress 2.

Circular or oblong layouts are convenient for dynamic spawn points, and they also have the effect of making the map's center a stronghold that players try to lock down—unlike in CoD, where folks tend to move like a two-way freeway. That's why BF Studios plopped the biggest and most destructible building on Saints Quarter right in the middle.

To be fair, Saints Quarter is larger than Black Ops 7's beta maps, so of course it has the room to provide more options, but that's the point! CoD maps weren't always so boxy and restrictive. They used to be weird in similar ways, though not quite as bananas as classic PC shooters. Nowadays, when a genuinely interesting map comes out of a Treyarch game, it's a minor miracle.

In case you're getting the impression that BF Studios has released a map with zero faults, know that Saints Quarter has its problems, too. The spawns in Team Deathmatch and Domination are a bit of a mess at the moment, and while the east courtyard is a contentious hot spot in King of the Hill, it's an unpleasant Domination flag.

So even though my number one Battlefield 6 complaint remains a lack of big maps, I have to admit Saints Quarter makes a strong case for 8v8 Battlefield.

Only a few months after most of the Warcraft Rumble team was laid off as all future development was canceled, a majority of the remaining workers therein and the Hearthstone team have voted to organize—joining over 1,900 Blizzard workers now in a union under the Communications Workers of America.

As the CWA posted on their site, the new group represents "over 100 workers including software engineers, designers, artists, quality assurance testers, and producers." They are the fifth group at Blizzard to do so, following the Diablo team's vote less than two months ago. Microsoft has already recognized the union.

The CWA shared quotes from various developers supporting the motion in its announcement. Game designer on the Hearthstone team and organizing committee member Dominic Calkosz said, "My coworkers, as individuals, have voiced many concerns over the years, but it is easy for any company to ignore individuals.

"We chose to organize in pursuit of a collective voice and a force of solidarity that the industry cannot ignore."

Another committee member and QA analyst Carol Blean stated in the same post, "I support our union because we deserve to be heard and respected … Real solutions, not free therapy or relocation suggestions, are needed to address being overworked, underpaid, and forced into unreasonable choices."

These waves of unionization follow Microsoft's historic, $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, which begat thousands of layoffs and the cancellation of a Blizzard survival game six years into development. Meanwhile, the tech giant achieved "record performance" financially in 2024, raking in $245 billion in revenue—something CWA called attention to earlier this year amid another round of layoffs.

Microsoft's internal strife marks a much larger ill blighting the games industry, but union votes like the ones passing all over Blizzard mark that developers aren't keen to take the exploitation sitting down.

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat; Black Ops 7 says it's nailing cheaters, and that's that.

Fresh off a humblebrag earlier in the beta, Activision-Blizzard's Team Ricochet has returned to provide some more stats on dirty rotten cheaters that, on the surface at least, make for some impressive reading. "We’ve crunched the numbers for Black Ops 7 Beta, and Ricochet Anti-Cheat achieved the strongest Beta results in Call of Duty history," says a message from Team Ricochet on X. "Each day, our cheat detections got faster and your matches got cleaner."

Activision-Blizzard now claims that, by the end of the Black Ops 7 beta, "nearly 99% of matches were cheater-free" and "the median detection time for cheaters was three matches."

This does raise a few questions. Only one in 100 games featuring a cheater is an impressive stat, but such a claim also depends on Ricochet having 100% confidence that it's detecting all cheaters… which may not be the case.

Secondly, a median time to detection of three matches seems… a little high? Far be it from me to cast aspersions on a piece of anti-cheat software that is clearly catching an awful lot of scoundrels, but if it's taking three games (and obviously with a median value in some cases that means many more) then maybe there's yet room for improvement.

Ricochet addressed the secure boot and TPM 2.0 requirements earlier this month, claiming that in concert with the software's automated systems even "those who did manage to slip through didn’t last long. Most never made it into a match." Grumbles persist about allowing this software kernel-level access to our machines, which as PCG's hardware writer Jacob Ridley says "is like administrator [mode] on steroids." But sadly it's not going anywhere.

The 99% number is incidentally a slight improvement on where Team Ricochet thought they were a few weeks ago. "97% of cheaters were stopped within 30 minutes of their first sign-in, [and] fewer than 1% of cheating attempts reached a match, and those who did were removed within minutes," they said on October 6.

It's also pleasing to see that Activision is prepared to use its muscle outside of the game. It's sent an army of lawyers after cheat-makers and won some hefty judgements against the biggest culprits, with some of the villains even choosing to give up without a fight. Activision says it has "directly contributed" to over 40 cheat developers and resellers going out of business (or possibly even further underground) since last year's Black Ops 6.

I'm not sure quite how to feel about the robust attitude Team Ricochet takes towards cheaters. These stats all sound impressive and, very generally speaking, players do seem to be having fewer matches ruined. But maybe next time it could back up the numbers with some insight as to how it reaches these estimates, because just sticking a big graphic on X saying "99% cheat-free" feels a little simplistic.

"Team Ricochet is always adapting, working to stay ahead and keep your matches fair," say our kernel-loving friends. "We'll keep the updates—and progress—coming as we head into Black Ops 7 launch on November 14."

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's beta came and went over the weekend, or so we thought. After two days of closed access and another two days open to the public, Activision has decided to extend the beta another three days and add one more 6v6 map, Toshin.

The double XP party is now on until the Blops 7 beta finally concludes on October 9, which just happens to be 24 hours before the global launch of Battlefield 6. Is it a coincidence that the two games keep intersecting like this? I mean yeah, probably—it's a packed fall calendar and you gotta hold your betas sometime—but the short turnaround continues to make these dueling military FPS giants interesting to compare.

Take the betas themselves: Battlefield 6 surprised everyone when its open beta peaked at over 500,000 players on Steam alone, marking the "biggest Battlefield beta ever" for EA. Activision seems happy with the response to the Black Ops 7 beta so far, but Call of Duty's Steam concurrents didn't crest 100,000 as the beta opened up to everybody on Sunday. Steam is only part of the PC playerbase picture—a lot of Call of Duty players migrated to the Xbox app with Black Ops 6, where numbers are hidden—but the difference is stark enough to suggest there's more pre-release interest around Battlefield 6.

And how couldn't there be? Battlefield 6 represents DICE and collaborators trying to claw back the series' best days after four years of Battlefield 2042.

Black Ops 7's beta, meanwhile, is what you expect from a series that shows up every year with a fresh $70 price tag: Team Deathmatch, a perk reshuffle, and a new movement gimmick that may or may not stick. As someone who burnt out quickly on Black Ops 6, it comes off more like a glitzy expansion than a meaningful update.

But in a year where Activision detects real competition, the mega publisher is loosening its grip on its norms. Treyarch is ditching plans for lucrative brand skins (hasta la vista, American Dad) and following Battlefield 6's lead to stay grounded with cosmetics going forward. Then over the weekend, Treyarch made another shocking move by testing playlists with "drastically reduced" skill-based matchmaking, finally ceding ground on one of the most divisive issues in the CoD community.

No matter which side of the aisle you sit on, we're all benefiting from the competition.