On Nov. 14, 2025, Activision released its seventh title in the Black Ops series, Black Ops 7 (BO7). This was with partners like Treyarch, Raven Software, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer Games.
Interestingly, there is a gap, anywhere from two to four years, when the Blacks Ops games were released between 2010 to 2024. And players of the game took notice.
OH senior Malachi Curtis said, “To make BO7 better, they should’ve developed it more and just not released it as soon as they did.” Taking time to make something will pretty much make it better every time.
Some players feel like even with time, BO7 is not a great game. “I feel like no one really asked for it,” lamented OH senior Brandon Cerzwinski.
We see a match between both the new Black Ops 7 and the new Modern Warfare series in the fact that there was a single year between them, and also the change in developers, with the addition of Sledgehammer Games.
We wondered how could Activision recover from their past title, as their reputation is clearly impacted due to the patience in developing their games. As we’ve previously reported, OH students were less than thrilled with Black Ops, and many OH students opinions have not changed.
Students interviews in the BO7 preview believed that more realistic games set in realistic story lines, like Vietnam, would be appealing. So BO7 was a disappointment, then, to the Black Ops series.
Also, the same group that worked on Modern Warfare 3 worked on BO7, so Sledgehammer could be the reason why the new Call of Duty games are getting worse, and also the little time they take to produce another title could also be a reason for the games’ declining in popularity.
In our research, we discovered that after the layoffs at Microsoft at the beginning of 2024, Sledgehammer Games, Infinity Ward, and Activision (among others) were affected. Sledgehammer laid off 30% of its nearly 1,000-person staff, Infinity Ward laid off 16% of their small team (20 staff members), and Activision laid off nearly 3,600 people from 2019 to 2025. This clearly had an impact on the products like BO7.
But in truth, Sledgehammer has made some really good games in the past. Advanced Warfare, released in 2014, was a futuristic title that was new and very fun to play. For more realism, WWII was released in 2017 and was quite possibly a 1-to-1 replica of D-Day and the events of WWII.
OH senior William Wilkins Jones said, “Overall, I like WWII more. I think I’m interested in the history of WWII, so that game is one I really liked playing.”
This shows us that there has been and still is a possibility that Activision could make a really good game, but they choose not to with BO7. It is sad to see Black Ops, after 15 years in the making, coming to an end in this way.
My name is Gavin Baker, I'm a senior at OHS and this is my first year as a Journalist. I enjoy playing racing games, playing airsoft and racing my Traxxas RC car. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org.
Hello my name is Jydun Browder I am a senior at Oswego high school. This will be my first year on the 42fifty staff. You can contact me by emailing 42Fifty@sd308.org and putting my name in the subject line. We welcome comments on our articles and feedback on our publication!
