Black Ops 7 Revives Frustrating Call of Duty Feature Cycle

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 finally got its gameplay reveal at Gamescom 2025. Judging by the like-to-dislike ratio on the official Gameplay Reveal Trailer on YouTube, the reaction is quite polarizing, although personally, I’m really excited for the game. I’m very interested in seeing how the story continues from Black Ops 2, and I love its sweet Doctor Strange-like environments.

Black Ops 7 got a release date for November 14, but during the Gamescom Opening Night Live broadcast, as soon as the developer video started, I began to roll my eyes. Yale Miller of Treyarch said this during the Gamescom Co-Op Campaign Trailer, “Black Ops 7 brings an all-new way to play the Call of Duty campaign. This time you’re not going in alone.” Co-op campaigns aren’t new for Call of Duty, and the series trend of unceremoniously removing features and bringing them back needs to stop.

Call Of Duty Campaign Co-Op Isn’t New

Black Ops 7 Isn’t The First COD Game To Have Four-Player Co-Op

A huge talking point regarding Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is the co-op campaign. From start to finish, you can play the entire campaign with four players, and considering Black Ops 7 will be free with Game Pass, this is an awesome addition. However, the developers are talking about the co-op campaign as if it’s brand new, as Raven Software did in this X post.

The truth is, campaign co-op isn’t new, as it was in two prior Call of Duty games: World at War and Black Ops 3. Black Ops 3 was the last COD to have campaign co-op, nearly ten years ago. Presenting it as a shiny new addition in Black Ops 7 ignores the actual history of the feature in Call of Duty, and it highlights a long-standing problem with Call of Duty and many yearly releases: the constant removal and return of key features.

Call Of Duty Needs To Stop The Remove & Return Cycle

It’s So Frustrating

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Multiplayer Social

Campaign co-op isn’t the only returning feature in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Weapon prestige is back, as well as campaign weapon camos, returning from Black Ops 3. It’s frustrating because weapon prestige should never have been removed to begin with.

Weapon prestige is a core aspect of the multiplayer. As a longtime fan, it feels like COD is deliberately removing features like this to bring them back in a new game as a selling point.

I know sports game fans feel the same way about removing and returning features. I’m still looking forward to Black Ops 7, which seems to be the most social Call of Duty yet, boasting ambitious multiplayer modes and more futuristic movement. However, after Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the series must stop removing core features just to bring them back later.