For the first time in Call of Duty’s history, we’re getting back-to-back Black Ops titles, and whereas last year’s Black Ops 6 was grounded in the ’90s, Black Ops 7 aims to propel Call of Duty back to the future.

Unlike the far-future setting possibly hinted at in leaks, this is just the near future, as seen back in Black Ops 2. The game won’t feature jet packs, wall-running, or anything too high-tech, but there are still plenty of gadgets, robots, and enhancements to Treyarch’s omnimovement system to provide the futuristic aesthetics for Black Ops 7. The game will also launch with an ambitious new campaign and a massive round-based Zombies map.

GameSpot recently attended an early preview of Black Ops 7, where we received a huge info dump across all the game modes and previewed a few bits of the game. Despite being tasked with developing these back-to-back titles, Treyarch still managed to pack plenty of content into Black Ops 7.

Treyarch associate design director Matt Scronce and senior director of production Yale Miller explained that Black Ops 6 and 7 were planned out and developed together, and the ability to push out this much content at launch was a collaborative effort across multiple Call of Duty studios.

“We had two really clear and distinct visions for both games,” Miller said. “We, early on, knew we wanted to do something different as far as the eras, and tie in the ’90s game with the darker themes from Black Ops 1 and Black Ops 2.”

To keep things fresh for Black Ops 7, Treyarch leans into the time difference between the games. The story is set in the year 2035, which allows for enhanced soldiers and even more advanced omnimovement abilities, with players able to pull off wall jumps and perform combat rolls to avoid taking damage from a high fall. The scorestreaks of Black Ops 7 are also more high-tech and advanced than in Black Ops 6. One example we saw was the new D.A.W.G. scorestreak in action: a dog-like robot equipped with heavy guns and even a Trophy system for intercepting enemy projectiles.

Treyarch also confirmed that Black Ops 7 will feature progression across all modes. This means players will not only level up and unlock rewards in multiplayer and Zombies, but also the campaign.

A futuristic campaign

Black Ops 7’s campaign is a globetrotting affair with missions taking place in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and locations within Nicaragua. The narrative is themed around fear and perception, fighting against an enemy using a mind-altering weapon to stimulate fear and create hallucinations. This theme lets Treyarch lean into the whimsical and mind-bending style often featured in Black Ops games. In the snippet of the campaign we were shown, the characters were fighting in Nicaragua, but in true Black Ops fashion, there were giant machetes falling from the sky and floating chunks of land hovering all around the map like something out of a fantasy game.

The Black Ops 7 campaign is designed for up to four-player co-op, but it can be experienced solo as well. The developers confirmed the difficulty scales when playing co-op, meaning partying up with friends doesn’t necessarily make it easier, and teamwork is needed to get through missions.

New “endgame” campaign content

The most notable detail about the campaign is the inclusion of an “endgame.” Treyarch confirmed there are a total of 11 campaign missions, and there will be a conclusion to the story, but completion of the story unlocks a twelfth mission as endgame content designed with replayability in mind.

We were briefly shown a map of Avalon for this endgame content. Yes, the once-rumored Warzone map has turned into a campaign location, and the size definitely looks like it could be on par with a large Warzone map, or perhaps even bigger. Parts of Avalon are featured in the campaign missions, but players won’t unlock the full map and content until reaching the endgame. This allows for open-world gameplay with up to 32 players dropping into matches that sound like they have elements of Modern Warfare 2’s DMZ mode and Modern Warfare 3’s Zombies mode mixed in. Players can customize their characters in the endgame with the skills and abilities featured in the campaign, such as grappling hooks and the cloaking ability of Active Camo.

Treyarch design director Kevin Drew described this endgame as a unique power journey that requires several sessions to complete. Players need to level up to upgrade their health, loadout, and abilities before reaching the harder regions of the map.

“You’re going to be wingsuiting in, and there is a new conflict that has you finding that final objective in the hardest region of Avalon,” Drew explained.

There’s also risk involved here, as getting squad-wiped in a match means you lose all of your progression for the operator. In order to keep your rewards, you’ll need to survive and exfiltrate from Avalon at the end of a session.

“There’s a lot more weight to everything you do in the endgame,” Drew said. “You have to make sure you escape every time. If you die, you’re going to lose that.”

It’s also worth mentioning that Treyarch confirmed six of the 11 campaign missions are standard linear missions, and the other five are larger in scale and take place on parts of Avalon.

One of the greatest detriments to MW3’s poorly-received campaign was the handful of missions that dropped players into an open-world setting and had an empty, less-engaging feel than more directed, linear levels. These missions killed the pace of the campaign and lessened the impact of the more story-driven missions. With that in mind, I asked Miller how similar these larger Avalon missions were to those of MW3.

“Avalon is the full endgame experience,” Miller said. “That is your open-world ‘do anything’-type missions, but there are [campaign] missions in between that are specific areas of Avalon to ease you into that [endgame] experience, so when you hit the endgame, you have an idea of what’s going on.”

“Those missions are very directed, though,” Miller continued. “They are linear missions that just so happen to take place on Avalon.”

Multiplayer with new gadgets and tech

As for multiplayer, Black Ops 7 will launch with 18 maps. There are 16 standard maps and two for the game’s new large-scale Skirmish mode. The 18 include mostly brand-new locations for Black Ops 7, but three of the standard maps are popular picks from Black Ops 2–Raid, Hijacked, and Express all return, but they have a slightly different aesthetic as they are now set in Japan.

Skirmish, Treyarch’s ambitious new Ground War-style mode, features squads of four competing in 20v20 matches with a variety of capture-, destroy-, or escort-style objectives to complete. The larger map sizes used for Skirmish make use of the campaign’s wingsuits, grappling hooks, and vehicles to help you better traverse the space.

One interesting feature we saw during our brief preview of Skirmish was something similar to Black Op 6’s meat-shield mechanic, in which you can grab another player and use them as a shield. Instead of grabbing their opponent and holding them hostage, the operator attached an explosive to them and knocked them off a rooftop, leaving the opponent to glide down into the battle on their wingsuit and explode. It was very cinematic and cool-looking, although this feels like a new animation that will be very situational and difficult to pull off in a match.

Treyarch confirmed Black Ops 7 features 30 weapons at launch. While many of them are inspired by classics, 16 of the weapons are brand-new to Call of Duty. We were shown several guns, including the return of familiar Black Ops weapons like the Peacekeeper MK1 and M8A1 marksman rifle, but Treyarch also showed off new weapons like the Echo 12 shotgun. Scronce described the Echo 12 as a dual-burst shotgun with an underbarrel rotating magazine. We also saw a new sniper rifle called the DS Recon, which is inspired by the DSR 50 from Black Ops 2.

One new change for multiplayer is the ability to “overclock” scorestreaks and equipment, allowing players to pick from one of two buffs that can be applied to make them even more efficient to use. One example was the Active Camo field upgrade, which is the digital camouflaging tech from Black Ops 3 and Infinite Warfare that allows the user to blend in with their surroundings. With the Overclocking feature, it can be buffed for a faster recharge speed for re-cloaking, or to allow for re-cloaking after the player fires their weapon. These Overclock options can help get the user back in the stealth mode a bit faster.

Treyarch also confirmed a few perks for multiplayer. One notable inclusion is Looper, which lets players “loop” their scorestreaks to get more of them in a single life. By default, once you’ve used all three of your scorestreaks, you have to wait until you die and respawn to use them again, but Looper lets you keep using scorestreaks as long as you keep earning them.

Other perks include a Fast Hands-style perk to increase reload speed, which has been tied to attachments in recent years. The Tactical Sprint feature of previous games is also going to be turned off by default, but players who like the short burst of faster speed can equip Tactical Sprint as a perk. Additionally, the Wildcard and Combat Specialists perk bonuses from Black Ops 6 will return with Black Ops 7.

An ambitious round-based Zombies map

As for Zombies, it will launch with the largest round-based map the mode has ever seen. It’s inspired by Black Ops 2’s Tranzit, but set entirely inside the Dark Aether. We were briefly shown an image of the map’s overhead layout, which has a wobbly figure-eight shape to it. This odd design makes it more like a race track, as the map pieces together seven separate locations connected by dangerous stretches of road.

Like Tranzit, players can travel the roads between locations using a vehicle, but instead of the Tranzit bus system, there is a new Wonder Vehicle for players to use. Not a lot was discussed about this new ride, but Treyarch showed a brief image of an armored SUV-style vehicle with three demonic mouths coming out of the front grill, and the body of the vehicle wrapped in chains and monstrous-looking tendrils. Given the name “Wonder Vehicle,” it’s likely this is something similar to Wonder Weapons, where players must build it via hidden quest steps in order to progress with the map’s storyline.

Of the seven map pieces, we were only shown the Farm location, which looked like a close recreation of Farm from the original Tranzit map. This is the only Zombies map available at launch, but Treyarch said more maps will arrive post-release, including some of the individual locations from the launch map. Miller confirmed some of the DLC maps will be new locations, but didn’t say how many new maps would arrive.

“There will be new round-based Zombies maps,” Miller said. “There are a few of the specific [launch] map locations that will arrive as Survival maps in post-launch, but those don’t take the place of new, full round-based experiences.”

Black Ops 6’s Directed mode that helped guide players through Zombies’ main story quests is also coming back for Black Ops 7. Scronce confirmed the studio saw more players completing the story Easter egg quests with Directed mode.

“There were so many players who didn’t even know Zombies had a story,” Scronce said. “It’ll be back.”

“Directed mode is one of those things we’ve been happy to see more people experiencing things, playing together, and seeing all the cool stuff that Zombies has to offer,” Miller added.

Dead Ops Arcade, the Zombies twin-stick shooter mode, is also returning in Black Ops 7, but we didn’t receive much information about it. A full Zombies reveal is scheduled for early September, and plenty of more Black Ops 7 details, including new information on Warzone, will be revealed during Call of Duty Next, which is taking place on September 30.

Going back-to-back with the same Call of Duty sub-series is a tall task. Experiencing Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3 in consecutive years was an awkward approach, with MW3 feeling more like DLC than a standalone game. It didn’t feel as fresh or exciting with so much of the content being recycled and the game staying grounded in the same era.

From what we were shown in this preview, Black Ops 7 has the potential to feel exciting, instead of like a Black Ops 6 expansion. The developer leaning into the drastic change in eras could do a lot for how Black Ops 7 feels. Of course, this is only based on what we saw previewed with Black Ops 7. As far as gameplay goes, our Black Ops 7 hands-on impressions will come at a later date.