While I generally dislike describing games as being lazily designed, since they are tremendously hard to make, laziness does seem to be a running theme with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Its single-player campaign felt decidedly slapped together when it launched in October last year, while the post-launch support for its unambitious multiplayer has mostly focussed on playing the hits like Safeguard rather than trying anything radically new.
But Season 4 of Black Ops 7 takes things one step further, bringing the FPS equivalent of an easy chair into the game itself. Not only does it introduce a mode that removes the most interesting new feature added to Call of Duty in the last few years, but it also introduces a gun that essentially aims for you.
Season 4 bolsters Black Ops 7’s arsenal with several new weapons, including the rapid-fire VX Compact Assault Rifle, and the battle pass exclusive CBRS-3 SMG and KRS-7.62 Marksman Rifle. But it’s Grimhawk that stands out. Available as a weekly challenge reward, this fully automatic rifle fires low-velocity rounds that home in on targets firing at you. Activision stresses that these are “light” homing rounds, so they won’t do all the work for you. Nonetheless, supercharged aim assist is a pretty big advantage in a multiplayer FPS.
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Alongside this, Season 4 adds a new mode called ‘Black Ops Classic’ which removes the Omnimovement system first added in Black Ops 6 while also featuring “streamlined” loadouts and a “throwback” map roster. That means no wall jumping, no sliding, no acrobatics of any kind.
Basically, it’s Black Ops for FPS pensioners—old fashioned, sensible deathmatch with no larking about. You don’t even have to aim properly if you’ve got the Grimhawk equipped. Given Black Ops 7’s current trajectory, Season 5 will presumably bring a slippers perk and a hot-water bottle scorestreak.
On the subject of scorestreaks, season 4 adds a new one called “Iron Rain”, basically a big drone that lets you track enemies on the ground and then pummel them with aerial artillery. It also adds a new 6v6 map called Primetime, brings back another Black Ops 2 map called Vertigo, and sees the return of the Gunfight game mode in 6v6 form.
Black Ops 7, Season 4 is available to play now. Personally though, my eyes have turned to the next entry in Call of Duty. Microsoft has formally raised the curtain on Modern Warfare 4, which heralds the return of Infinity Ward and has been cooking for four years—a long time in Call of Duty terms. Morgan Park got hands on with it last month, and while he wasn’t sold on its map roster, he thought the gunplay was sublime. “In terms of raw FPS craft, this is immediately head and shoulders above the previous pair of Black Ops—games that look and sound fine. It really does matter who makes Call of Duty.”
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