Call of Duty's future u-turn is wild and gamers all agree about key detail

Activision has announced a dramatic u-turn for the future of the Call of Duty series and fans have been all agreeing about one key detail.

The latest release in the Call of Duty series is Black Ops 7 which released last month (November) and it was met with mixed reviews from critics and gamers alike.

While multiplayer and zombies have been mostly praised, pretty well the whole Call of Duty community slammed the game's campaign.

WHY NOT READ: Battlefield 6 v Black Ops 7 was the 2025 shooting game of the year showdown - but neither won

The game has reportedly not met the player count of previous releases and has not performed to Activision's expectations financially. Activision issued an update about the future of the series on Tuesday (9 December).

A release said: "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."

The first time this happened was in 2023 when Modern Warfare III immediately followed Modern Warfare II. This year, Black Ops 7 followed the release of Black Ops 6 in 2024.

And fans have been speculating the reason for this u-turn is because the launch for Black Ops 7 has fallen short of what Activision would have wanted.

One said: "Holy s***! That new Call of Duty blog is wild. This has to be one of the worst selling and performing titles in franchise history."

Another said: "Holy s*** ARC Raiders and Battlefield 6 legit beat Call of Duty into making a better product. I can't believe what I'm seeing."

One posted: "Black Ops 7 going free-to-play not even a month after launch is genuinely sad. Sales must be down bad if this is happening..."

Another said: "Black Ops 7 financially failed for Activision yet it is the BEST Call of Duty game we've had since Black Ops 4."

And another said: "Never thought we'd see anything like it Black Ops 7 has probably sold less than Vanguard if this is the outcome. Franchise fatigue is definitely the driving cause, the game itself isn't bad, it just never had a chance."

In the comments on Call of Duty's post on X / Twitter, one said: "Damn Black Ops 7 must be doing really badly."

Another commented: "No way anyone on that team is genuinely proud of that pathetic piece of garbage you call a 'campaign'... Especially after how good Black Ops 6 and Cold War's were..."

And others had sympathy for the developers.

One said: "I want to take a min to defend these Call of Duty devs. Especially Treyarch. Ain't no way they should have been asked to create back-to-back Black Ops games. They literally set them up for failure. Whoever was in charge of making that decision needs to take a look in the mirror."

And another agreed: "Call of Duty taking a step back from the release cadence of Modern Warfare and Black Ops is the right call Allow these studios time to innovate and make something that pushes the genre forward."

Elsewhere from indy100:

• Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 review - the good, the bad and the ugly
• Battlefield 6 v Black Ops 7 was the 2025 shooting game of the year showdown - but neither won

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