Treyarch introduced Wccftech and several select journalists and content creators to get a behind-closed-doors peek at what's coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 ahead of the Gamescom Opening Night reveals. While the major focus was on the connected co-op campaign and Endgame, Treyarch proudly showcased the changes coming to the core multiplayer and why this year's competitive FPS experience would be drastically different from last year's title.
Being built on future technology, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 takes the Omnimovement from last year’s Black Ops 6 and brings in many new traversal tools and upgrades, from a wall jump to a combat roll to reduce damage taken from falling off heights (something they noted would be disabled in Core 6v6 multiplayer). Wingsuits, a new Megajump ability, and even a grappling hook with add faster mobility options to the battlefield, but Treyarch isn’t yet saying if these will be something similar to Black Ops 4’s Specialists or something else entirely.
Despite being faster-paced in terms of Omnimovement, the development team wanted to emphasize that they want to be more focused on the movement rather than trying to slow down the action. Many of the skills that pro players adapted over the years are instead turned into optional perks to equip with Tactical Sprint being one of the notable changes. Similarly, several ADS abilities, like being able to aim while wall jumping or sliding, are also opt-in via the perk system. Because of how Omnimovement allows players to sprint in any direction, they also brought Gung-Ho back as a sprint fire option. Rather than Sleight of Hand being the main perk for reload times, the development team is aiming to put that stat on the attachments instead.
At launch, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is bringing out sixteen 6v6 maps for multiplayer and 30 weapons in all. Of the sixteen maps, there will be new regional variants of Raid, Express, and Hijacked back, all three set in Japan as part of the global campaign. Some of the weapons being showcased were the M8A1 marksman rifle, Peacekeeper MK1 assault rifle, a dual-wield shotgun known as the Nikita, and a charged energy launcher called the Polis. When sharing the raw numbers on the weapons, there were six assault rifles in total (three brand new to Call of Duty), six submachine guns, three sniper and marksman rifles each, three shotguns, two light-machine guns, three pistols, and two launchers and melee weapons. Treyarch made an important note that these were all launch weapons, possibly opening the doors to more weapons to come in future content drops, either through patches for the seasons or through whatever version of the battle pass they’ve done in the past, if history has taught us anything.
In addition to changing up the perks available for loadouts in multiplayer, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is also expanding the combat specialties system with three new hybrid specs to unlock. As with the prior game, equipping three perks of a given style (represented by color), a matching set would unlock an additional bonus spec, which would amplify the effectiveness of that playstyle. While the prior game only gave these bonus specialties by equipping three matching colors, Black Ops 7 is introducing hybrid specialties by focusing on two specific colors. By focusing on Support and Offense, for example, players can unlock the Overwatch specialty, granting a score bonus for any kills within ten seconds after earning an assist. Another was the combination of Stealth and Support, which granted faster field upgrade charges for stealthy kills. If perks are more important to your playstyle than scorestreaks, a new wildcard is available, which grants the user additional perks every 200 points, maxing out at 1,200 points in a single life.
Loadouts are also getting a small upgrade with the new Overclock system. Overclocks allow equipment, scorestreaks, and field upgrades to upgrade over time during the course of a match. One of the key upgrades they mentioned was Active Camouflage, which would automatically recloak after firing your weapon after a set time.
Weapon builds will also be getting an overhaul when it comes to being social. Rather than having to look at a screen grab to grab weapon attachments or weapon tuning, players can share a build code and import it either from social media or outside the game to add that particular build into their loadout, and it will also be a part of Gunsmith.
Lastly, prestige is coming back as an evolution of the classic prestige from last year’s Black Ops 6. Weapons can level from 1-50, and once players opt into going into a prestige, they will reset all of the camos earned and attachments, essentially resetting everything except for the optics and crosshairs unlocked. Once hitting prestige on a particular weapon, a unique attachment will be unlocked. Treyarch commented that they will be meta-shifting attachments, but if this means things like dual-wield akimbo or dragon’s breath ammo for shotguns, I could see players focusing on particular weapons for the first couple weeks of Black Ops 7’s core multiplayer.
Carry Forward in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 doesn’t sound like it will be everything available in last year’s Black Ops 6 that will migrate into the new title. Treyarch made a point that it would be a “wide variety of content” with XP tokens and Gobblegums for the Zombies mode available on day one, while the majority of content will be moving forward for the first season.
Ricochet anti-cheat will be getting updated for the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and while specifics were not shown off, they will be continuing the phased rollout of SecureBoot and TPM 2.0 requirements. For the first time in Call of Duty history, both TPM 2.0 and SecureBoot will be required for PC players.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will launch on November 14th.
[Editor’s Note: Treyarch provided travel accommodations for Wccftech to attend a behind-closed-doors reveal ahead of their Gamescom Opening Night showcase.]
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
