Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Zombies Is Losing Players | How Better Rewards Could Save It?
Category: CoD: Black Ops 7 Posted: Dec 31, 2025 Views: 1344
After its release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 received much criticism from players. While its single-player campaign was quite poor and the core systems offered little improvement, its Zombies mode remained high-quality.
However, player feedback indicates a declining interest in Zombies mode. This isn't to criticize the mode's performance in Black Ops 7, but rather to analyze some of the problems that have arisen and potential areas for improvement.

Development Team
The root of the problems can be traced back to 2021, when Zombies development team was placed in a leadership position overseeing the entire Call of Duty series. This meant they not only had to manage their own projects but also assist other studios, even handling Warzone content, undoubtedly leading to team burnout.
Furthermore, the unified of the game engine has led to increasing similarities between Zombies and other gameplay modes like Warzone. The official apology was recently issued, confirming that they will avoid resembling Modern Warfare or Black Ops in the future, suggesting that the future development of Zombies may be even better than in previous years.
Narrative Regression
While the narrative in Zombies mode has actually improved, especially the environmental storytelling within maps, which far surpasses Cold War and Black Ops 6, its pacing remains a significant issue.
This problem is similar to Black Ops 6. The opening cutscenes for BO7's first map were very engaging, but subsequent cutscenes only provided substantial plot progression towards the end of the season. Although the developers promised opening animations for each new turn-based map, this hasn't fundamentally solved the narrative problem.
Take the opening of Astra Malorum map as an example: it's visually stunning, but the characters lack dialogue, which is one of the charms of past Zombies modes. Character interactions in cutscenes, in-map dialogue, and Easter egg sequences collectively create a coherent narrative experience.
The narratives in CoD Black Ops 6 and 7 feel slow-paced and lack sufficient information. While Cold War had few cutscenes, its top-tier Intel system laid a solid foundation for Dark Aether storyline, which unfortunately wasn't fully realized in CoD Vanguard, Modern Warfare 3, or even CoD Black Ops 6 and 7.
Astra Malorum
Direct evidence of the decline of Zombies mode is players have shown significantly less interest in Astra Malorum DLC map.
This is actually a very good map, with a challenging main Easter egg, a difficult boss fight, and excellent visual presentation. However, the hype surrounding Astra Malorum is probably the lowest since Black Ops 4.
Besides the aforementioned gameplay and narrative fatigue, this also reflects the fatigue caused by releasing multiple sub-series titles in Black Ops series.
Players until recently discovered a side quest Easter egg in Astra Malorumthat rewards Ray Gun. The fact that such an attractive reward took so long to be discovered suggests that not enough players are currently exploring this map.
Insufficient Rewards
For a title like Black Ops 7, released so close to its predecessor, the key is to ensure the endgame content is engaging. This refers to progression, secrets, and new items, not necessarily new modes. The endgame needs to offer sufficient rewards for hardcore zombie players and anyone wanting to try and improve their skills.
Currently, the biggest problem with Zombies mode is the reward system. Relics hunt in Cursed mode is almost untouched because players can already directly activate Tier 3 Curses with Relics obtained from Ashes of the Damned map.
So, besides experiencing different difficulty modifications, what incentive is there for players to challenge themselves for 40 or 60 rounds to obtain more Relics? Players can already obtain Tier 4 Pack-a-Punch, ultra-rare weapons, or Golden Armor through other means.
In fact, the game practically has a ready-made solution, but it's been overlooked. If players collect enough relics on a specific map and complete the main Easter egg while it's active, they can obtain a Universal Pack-a-Punch Camo.
This system already exists in the menu, but it only allows switching skin displays during matches, which is a huge waste.
If this reward were a legitimate camouflage, it would not only incentivize hardcore players to challenge themselves but also attract multiplayer and Warzone players to Zombie mode and challenge Easter eggs in Cursed mode for the cool camouflage.
Cursed mode itself has a good concept; it successfully extends the playable lifespan of maps. However, the current problem is that the rewards for high-difficulty challenges are insufficient. This leads to a lack of motivation for hardcore players to challenge themselves, while casual players give up due to the difficulty.
How to Solve This?
To solve this problem, the reward issue must be addressed first. Only with sufficiently generous rewards can enough players be attracted.
Currently, unlocking Relics camouflage is similar to finding a menu; players need to find the unlocking method themselves. If the system could be changed so that when players equip Relics, the unlock conditions are explicitly stated, this would incentivize players to challenge themselves with more difficult content to achieve their goals.
Furthermore, each map should have an Easter egg unlocked by activating a specific Relic combination obtained from that map. If only fixed rewards like Golden Armor are available throughout the year, player interest will only continue to decline.
Building on this, increasing rewards and adding dialogue to cutscenes could reignite player interest in Zombies mode.
The Zombies mode in CoD BO7 doesn't need major overhauls. Completely revamping the gameplay can be left for future Call of Duty titles. The current goal is to address the aforementioned issues and reignite community interest as we enter the new year.
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