Call of Duty going “soft” in 2025 isn’t about one bad decision or a single flop of a feature. It’s the result of several problems piling up at the same time, right when the shooter market is the most competitive it has been in years.
Most analysts reviewing Black Ops 7 agree that the game isn’t hitting the usual Call of Duty benchmarks, and Xbox let things slide at the exact wrong time.
The series still draws millions of players every month, but its once-untouchable dominance has started to fade, and that matters for a franchise that has led the FPS genre for over a decade.
How Did Black Ops 7 Perform Compared to Previous Years?
Black Ops 7 looks stable on the surface since it launched on all major platforms, topped PlayStation’s digital charts in its release month, and joined the Call of Duty HQ ecosystem with Warzone.
The difference becomes obvious when you stack it against recent years.
Daily active users have been falling across 2024 and 2025, and some months are now sitting at their weakest since the HQ app debuted.
That’s happening in a year where Black Ops 6 is considered a standout release for the franchise.
In short, Call of Duty was already slipping heading into 2025, and Black Ops 7 wasn’t the release that could stop the slide.
What’s Behind the Rising Player Fatigue This Year?
Analysts point to long-building franchise fatigue, saying the yearly release cycle has worn players down to the point where many were buying new entries out of habit rather than excitement.
That habit is finally cracking as players speak up about being stuck in the same loop of familiar modes, predictable pacing, and frustrations that never really disappear.
Skill-based matchmaking remains an issue for players who think every lobby feels too serious to be enjoyable. Long-time fans are worn out from a game that feels more focused on selling bundles than improving how it actually plays.
How Has Call of Duty Drifted From Its Original Identity?
At the same time, the series has struggled to hold onto its identity because the wave of over-the-top cosmetics has nudged it away from the grounded military tone that originally set it apart.
Players picked up on the shift right away, arguing the tone veered so hard it made the battlefield look more like a crossover theme park.
Black Ops 7 tried to re-center itself by reducing the carryover features so the game felt more authentic, though the change only arrived after players were worn out by the cosmetic direction.
Warzone still carries the louder, sillier side of the brand, which makes the overall identity feel split.
How Did the Co-Op Campaign Affect Player Reception?
Black Ops 7 holds up overall, though its co-op campaign is an obvious weak point.
The co-op-first approach made the mode repetitive on your own, and the need to stay online the whole time didn’t sit well with players.
On top of that, the reliance on easily recognizable AI-made visuals became the center of the backlash, with “AI slop” turning into a catchall insult for anything fans felt was lazy, cheap, or off-brand.
Once the review bombing hit and Steam dipped to “mostly negative,” the release carried a sour tone, despite many players still having fun in multiplayer or Zombies.
Why Are Analysts Pointing Fingers at Xbox?
Xbox enters the spotlight on the business side, largely because Microsoft chose to launch Black Ops 7 on Game Pass from day one, repeating what it did with Black Ops 6.
From the subscription angle, it’s a clear win for Xbox, giving Game Pass a headline release while letting anyone who wouldn’t pay seventy dollars jump in with ease.
From a sales-only angle, analysts still consider it successful, despite estimates that Black Ops 6 might have given up hundreds of millions in full-price purchases by releasing directly on the service.
Those tradeoffs hit Black Ops 7 too. It might pull big numbers on Game Pass, but that doesn’t translate the same way when people start comparing sales or stacking it up against games that still rely on full-price purchases.
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