Fans of Call of Duty will no doubt be excited to dive into the Black Ops 7 Beta, which even includes elements of the Zombies mode that has become so popular over the years. Players will get to experience a portion of what the upcoming title's round-based mode has to offer before its full November release, with developer Treyarch looking to make this the most comprehensive Black Ops offering to date.
The Best War Games recently sat down with Treyarch's design director Kevin Drew to talk about the upcoming FPS in more detail. Specifically, he discussed the types of feedback the team is looking for from fans who play the Black Ops 7 Beta.
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Black Ops 7's Beta Gives Players an Early Taste of the Action
The main purpose of any Beta is for fans to get an early glimpse of what a game has to offer, and, more importantly, to provide feedback to the developer in terms of things that are working well, and things that may need more work. In a game as popular as Call of Duty, this Beta period is imperative to ensuring the full launch gets off to a smooth start, by mitigating as many issues as possible. Drew gave the example of weapon balance being one of the things he would expect to get feedback on from Beta players. He said,
''Weapon balance is a good example. It's a lot harder at launch to go out the gate with something, that if it's too powerful, it's really hard to pull that back. But with the Beta, we can be like, whoops, this shotgun is ridiculous, and we can actually re-tune that. That's the whole point of the Beta. So I think weapon balance is definitely one thing.''
Black Ops 7's Zombies Mode Takes a Different Approach to High Rounds
One of the other things that Black Ops 7's Zombie Mode does differently is in its approach to 'high rounds', which is the term the community uses for the mode's later rounds, when the difficulty really starts to crank up. Previous installments have thrown an insane number of enemies and more mini-bosses at players who survive the early stages, and this seemed to divide player opinion a little. Drew explained,
''I think high rounds is another thing we'd be very interested in. We got a lot of feedback last year about high rounds having too many special enemy types and that we made the zombies very fast. This game, we're trying a different approach for high rounds, where it actually is more about skillfully navigating around the zombies. They're not as fast, as they do more damage. So this is our first trial for that, to see how people like that. We're definitely still gonna have specials in there, but at a less frequent pace. So we want to see that feedback as well.''
It seems like the Beta will have plenty for fans to mull over as they sample numerous new modes, weapons, and maps. It should offer Treyarch a chance to remedy any niggling issues before Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's full launch next month, too, although plenty of post-launch support should also be expected.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 66 /100 Critics Rec: 34%
- Released
- November 14, 2025
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- Treyarch, Raven Software
- Publisher(s)
- Activision
