Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Review – A New But Familiar Way To Play Campaign
The Call of Duty: Black Ops games lean into fantasy and often surprise with a mind-bending narrative, and the Black Ops 7 campaign is no exception. It’s themed around the enemy using fear as a weapon, and you’re dropped into a storyline filled with hallucinations of monsters, trippy locations, and bizarre scenarios. This is a specific flavor of Call of Duty story that only developer Treyarch has shown the capacity to tell, and despite a few stumbles, the Black Ops 7 campaign does enough to leverage the potential of its more psychological narratives, while also moving the satisfying shooter gameplay into a new framework.
Confusingly enough, Black Ops 7 takes place over 40 years after the events of last year’s Black Ops 6 and 10 years following the events of Black Ops 2. The story is set in 2035 as a direct sequel to Black Ops 2, and it brings back David Mason from that game as the main protagonist. In Black Ops 7, you see the effects of Black Ops 2’s canonical ending, where Mason kills villain Raul Menendez and an uprising occurs. The world is now ravaged by violent conflict and psychological warfare, and The Guild, a global tech corporation, has stepped in to “protect” humanity from the chaos created by Menendez’s followers. But uh-oh: Menendez seemingly returns despite his apparent death.
David Mason looks slightly different in Black Ops 7, as he is now played by Milo Ventimiglia (Gilmore Girls, Heroes) instead of the original actor Sam Worthington. Michael Rooker (Guardians of the Galaxy) is back as Mike Harper, a role he played in Black Ops 2. Eric Samuels also returns from Black Ops 2, and the fourth member of the squad is Leilani “50/50” Tupuola, who is a new badass soldier with advanced bionics. This squad of four is known as Specter One, and they’re guided by a much older version of Troy Marshall, played by Y’lan Noel (The First Purge), from Black Ops 6.
