The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 campaign has some ridiculous limitations — I can’t believe the devs released it like this

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The latest Call of Duty game, Black Ops 7, is now available on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation. It’s predicted to be one of the biggest and most successful games of 2025, and the developers are calling it the most ambitious Black Ops title yet. Beyond the usual Zombies and multiplayer modes, the game features a new PvE extraction mode called Endgame, which unlocks after completing the campaign.

Now that Black Ops 7 is available, players are finding several frustrating issues with the campaign. It’s really surprising these problems made it into the final release, and many are disappointed with the current state of the single-player experience.

The campaign, and the entire Black Ops 7 game, requires a constant internet connection to play. You won’t be able to start the game without it, and it will stop if your connection drops. While this is becoming more common with games, it’s still really annoying for players with unreliable internet or those experiencing outages.

A frustrating part of the Black Ops 7 campaign is that you can’t pause when playing by yourself. This means if something comes up in real life, you have to quit the game completely to deal with it. Even if you manage to find a safe place to step away, the game will automatically kick you back to the main menu if you’re inactive for too long.

Black Ops 7 has a frustrating issue with updates: whenever Treyarch or Raven Software releases one, you’re instantly kicked back to the main menu to download it, even mid-cutscene. To make matters worse, if the game interrupts you for any reason – like an update or a crash – you’ll have to restart the entire mission from the beginning, as the game doesn’t save progress within a mission beyond a single play session.

These problems are honestly absurd for a story-driven game. While an always-online connection would be frustrating, I could live with it if that was the only issue. But the lack of a pause option when playing alone, being kicked for inactivity, no saved progress, and updates interrupting gameplay are all completely unacceptable.

I might be able to overlook the game’s flaws if the Black Ops 7 campaign was actually enjoyable, but early reactions from players are overwhelmingly negative. Many are criticizing the story for being confusing and hard to follow, and they’re also finding the gameplay strange, with massive bosses and over-the-top elements that feel out of place.

I might be able to overlook these issues if the Black Ops 7 campaign was enjoyable, but early reactions from players are mostly negative.

I was initially excited about the game’s focus on cooperative play. However, the game doesn’t offer any support for those playing solo. There are no AI companions to fill in for missing players, and some missions, clearly designed for four people, require you to repeat tasks four times if you’re playing by yourself, which can be frustrating.

Of course, many players are enjoying the game by just relaxing and having fun with the shooting mechanics. However, that same enjoyment can be found in numerous other shooter games – ones that also offer better stories and avoid the frustrating design flaws and annoyances present in this one.

It would be fantastic if the developers could improve the single-player experience. Not everyone has friends to play with, or even wants to play the story with others. Some helpful changes would be the ability to pause the game, remove the automatic disconnect timer for inactivity, save progress more reliably with persistent checkpoints, and prevent the game from restarting during updates. While those last points might be technically challenging, they’d really enhance the game for solo players.

Black Ops 7 has had a rocky start. While some players are enjoying the changes, like the aim assist, many are disappointed with the campaign and are generally tired of the yearly Call of Duty releases. This has led to a lot of debate around the new game, though it’s likely to still be a big seller, as usual. As my coworker Cole Martin pointed out in her review, it actually offers some new and interesting ideas, making it one of the most innovative Call of Duty games in a long time.

The release of Black Ops 7 has been met with a lot of debate, but despite the controversy, it’s likely to be a big seller, as previous games in the series always are.

This year’s competition is particularly tough, with Battlefield 6 proving to be a huge hit for Electronic Arts and a major challenge to Call of Duty. In some ways, Battlefield 6 has outperformed the latest Call of Duty title, especially with its own battle royale mode, Battlefield REDSEC, which directly competes with Call of Duty: Warzone.

You can play Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4 for $69.99. It’s also included with Xbox Game Pass, which works on both PC and Xbox consoles.

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2025-11-15 01:40