Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 7 (PHYSICAL) SALES ARE DOWN 61% COMPARED TO BLACK OPS 6"

Episode Date: November 22, 2025

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Join The Normandy For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme+! Join Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/msoH50WCu0K⁠Analytic Dreamz delivers the unfiltered truth on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the November 14, 2025 direct sequel to Black Ops 6 and 2. Set in 2035 with returning legends David Mason, Mike Harper, and Raul Menendez, Analytic Dreamz dissects the controversial 4–6 hour campaign featuring 4-player co-op, always-online requirements, no checkpoints, no pause, and reality-bending psy-op horror. Explore the new 32-player Endgame extraction mode, evolved omni-movement with wall-running, 16 new 6v6 maps, and the largest Zombies launch ever with classic Dark Aether systems.Analytic Dreamz exposes the hard numbers: Steam peak ~88K (down 70% from BO6), UK physical sales down 61%, lowest user Metacritic score in franchise history (1.7/10), and widespread backlash over AI-generated assets, unpolished textures, SBMM deception, and “brain rot” campaign design. From Vault Edition skin redesigns after community outrage to Game Pass cannibalization and early cheater waves, Analytic Dreamz breaks down why Black Ops 7 is the most divisive Call of Duty release in years. Real stats, real talk.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Time to get into one of the biggest games every single. Wait, hold on now. I think we're still talking about Call of Duty, but at the end of the day, when you look at the numbers, unfortunately, sometimes the grass isn't greener on the other side. Shepherd,

just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? Because you're probably wondering, what do you mean by that? Well, at the end of the day, this is one of the first times that Call of Duty put out Black Ops back to back as far as Black Ops 7, as far as Black Ops 6 and Blackop 7.

And safe to say that the reason they did that was pretty logical. Like if I was at the board and I was thinking to myself, what franchise should we continue out of Call of Duty? Keep in mind, Blackop 6 did phenomenal from a sales standpoint. And of course, a lot of people were saying that it was the biggest cod ever because when Activision kept coming out with all type of statistics which you know interestingly enough they're not doing right now for Blackop 7 it was basically saying that this is the biggest cod ever the sales are through the roof and safe to say I may or may

not have all the sales in front of me just to let you know exactly how big Blackop 6 was because of course the continuation from Blackop 6 to Blackop 7 for the first time ever as far as consecutive black ops releases i don't think call a duty fans saw that coming especially the way that they release and switch it up as far as different publishers um different developers as far as future uh releases so anyways getting into the comparison of black op six and black op seven before we dive deep into the uh catastrophe that is black of 7 release let's talk about its success that it had just last year which why i say grass is not the grass is not always greener on the other side because of course when we look at black op 6 a 300 000

out the gate concurrent player account when it first dropped on steam right compared to blackop 7 84 to 88 000 concurrent when it first came out that's a 70 percent drop as far as the specific black op 6 release on steam and the black ops 7 release on Steam. So now, now we got to switch our attention to Steam pre-orders. Because of course, you know I have to bring up this game

when talking about Blackop 7. And I know what you're thinking. Why do we have to talk about Battlefield 6 in a Blackop 7 review and sales roundup? Well, that is because, according to insiders, Blackop 6 debuted as the best selling game of 2025 year to date as far as the content, right? Blackop Six is currently one of the best-selling games of 2025.

Now, I'm no mathematician, but usually people pick between Battlefield and Call of Duty whenever they're going head to head because Battlefield doesn't release every single year like Call of Duty does. It seems as if their first ever consecutive release of Blackop Six and Black Hop 7 met with Battlefield 6's release was a recipe for disaster because they was probably thinking they was going to have the same type of numbers of Blackop 6 as far as the steam pre-order numbers being around 200 no as far as the concurrent count being around

300,000 for Blackop 6 but they failed to consider that the competition in 2025 as far as the gaming industry is the highest that has been in quite some time so saying all that is the lead up to this the steam pre-orders for Blackop 7 was 200,000 but then you'll look at it. look at Battlefield 6 and the pre-orders for Battlefield 6 just on Steam was one million and of course going back to my insider sources as far as people coming out talking about back of Battlefield 6 they basically said Battlefield 6 produced the highest single month US physical and digital full game track dollar sales in the total and three years and they said the last title to generate a larger full game track dollar sales a map sales total in the same

single month was Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 October 2022. You guys see that's the problem. So now that we objectively know that Battlefield 6 launch was one of the best selling games in general, especially if being compared to Modern Warfare 2, we know the type of mammoth that Blackop 7 was going up against, which makes the logical decision to try to consistently put out the Black Hop series a fail. because now you're going up something that's definitely taken away all of the sales from your particular game because at the end of the day, it is on GamePast. So some people may play Devils advocate and say, well, Black Up 7 is on Game Pass?

Why is it not selling as much as Battlefield as far as the Xbox platform? Which, interestingly enough, if you actually look at it, Call of Duty is the fifth, is the sixth most played game on Xbox. and Battlefield's nowhere in the top 10 as far as Xbox currently. When you look at PlayStation, Call of Duty is the most play game on PlayStation. And it says Call of Duty because it has all the franchises in one. I don't know how it works from a technical aspect, but somehow they're able just to keep the name Call of Duty.

So anyways, it's the most played game on PlayStation. And then you look at Steam, now this is where it gets interesting because, of course, Battlefield 6 is currently higher than Call of Duty. But when you look at Call of Duty, is nowhere to be found on the top 15 of Steam. And currently, a lot of people are using Steam numbers to talk about how bad of a launch Blackop 7 is,

as the 24-hour peak was 70,000 for Blackop 7. You would think when it came out, it would be at least, if not around Blackop 6 as far as 300,000, maybe around 100 to 200. 70,000 as far as out the gate, is very bad because it's only down from here, right? Right. But as far as looking at the console sales, that's why I say that because when you look at Battlefield 6, it's the sixth most play game on PlayStation and there's nowhere to be found as far as the top paid games as far as top 10 on Xbox. So keeping that in mind, I don't think Steam numbers are everything, but that's what a lot of people are targeting as far as talking about how Blackop 7 is not performing as well.

But let's get back into the comparison of Blackop 6 to Blackop 7 because when you look at the Steam sales, it makes sense why people are saying that as it is, down 70% as far as the concurrent player counts on Steam. And then, of course, when you look at the UK physical sales, it's down 61% versus Blackop 7. But Battlefield 7 is, I know, Black Battlefield 7. Blackop 7 is still number one in the UK charts as far as the launch week. So I'm not thinking it's doing terrible. It's just compared, it's being compared to such a mammoth of a game

that's doing successful. and the most successful was ever done as far as the Battlefield franchise that it makes Call of Duty look worse than it's actually doing in the grand scheme of things if that makes sense. So, consoles, I think Call of Duty will consistently

be fine. Steam, which a lot of people are going to Steam numbers, which is why I laid it out like I did. A lot of people saying that Black Ops has lost this way and it's basically fell off. I don't think it's fell off for any stretch of the imagination, but compared to Battlefield 6, it didn't have the greater numbers out of the game.

Now, that all out the way, because of course, we like to do reviewing sales roundups, right? So diving into the sales is what I wanted to start off with. But of course, I wanted to also get into the reviews, as that is where it gets very tricky for Black Ops fans. As it seems like from a player perspective, a lot of people are saying that the multiplayer map issue was solved with Blackop 7. But you don't hear that too often. You hear a lot of people talking about how the campaign. is one of the worst call-a-duty campaigns of all time if not be worse right so when people focus on a campaign when in my opinion people play blackouts for the multi-player it's very interesting how

so much backlash is is going viral for the campaign but nobody's talking about how they technically fix the multiplayer maps as far as a lot of people wanted more of the three-lane simplistic maps instead of whatever they gave us in blackop six literally that was the only complaint because everybody loved black ops it was just the maps and it seems like they fixed that black up seven but is everybody talking about it of course not because they want to focus on campaign which makes sense as one of the weird things about the campaign is that you cannot pause the game now i know that's a weird complaint right but think about it if you're a single player playing in the campaign you would think to yourself obviously i'd be able to pause the game because i'm the only one

on this on this server right but to go along with that not only can you not pause the game There's no checkpoints. And a lot of people are not enjoying the campaign from the hallucination heavy missions. Because of course, we're going back to Mason. No, not the Mason as far as Alex Mason. We're going to David Mason. And when you look at David Mason and the other characters you get to play as far as Mike Harper, Lelani, Eric Samuels, Troy Marshall, and the antagonist being the one and only,

Raul Manendez safe to say that people was thinking that oh black ops campaign has to be consistently good because personally I like the black up six campaign but black up seven campaign seems like it's one the worst of all time I don't know where in the world it went wrong so a lot of people labeling the campaign as bad and one of the worst of all time and then of course when you look at the zombies It seems like as far as from player feedback, it seems like a lot of people are enjoying the multiplayer and zombies aspect. But a lot of people are focusing so much on the bad campaign that is overshadowing. And then combining that with the fact that Battlefield 6 is having such a resurgence, it's just making Blackop 7 seem like it's one of the worst ever,

which I don't think that's deserved as far as how much they give you as far as an offering, especially if you're a GamePass user, which goes to my other part. point game pass rose by 50%. Now they're probably thinking to yourself. That is not consumer friendly. Why in the world is game past 50% increased? Well, I'm glad you asked. From a logical decision, I'm never going to advocate for a corporation, but I will let you in on this little detail, this little fact and let you know, let you do over what you will. But Xbox was trying to go the consumer friendly route, right? And basically, you was able to get, BlackOps 6 on Game Pass.

But when Bloomberg came out and reported that Xbox basically lost over $300 million and Call-A-Duty sales, they looked at their consumer-friendly practices, they basically just said, every time consumers wonder why 50% increase happened for the game pass, Xbox looks at this Bloomberg report, and now they're saying, What they do? Every time you want some consumer-friendly prices, they're going to say to themselves. Won't they do?

Because guess what? Back when they had consumer-friendly prices, they lost $300 million across both console and PC platforms. And according to insider sources, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood requested that Xbox Explore alternative strategies to boost its profitability, which is literally corporate jargon for stop. burning money for a consumer friendly practices. Now as a consumer, I'm not going to advocate for raising prices. I'm not even going to have I'm not even going to speak on me seeing the logical outcome to raising the prices. I'm just going to say you gave it to us one way and a year after you raised about 50% and as a

consumer as a as a soldier of the consumer army I cannot agree with that. Shepard, just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? So all logic out the window because I'm a part of the consumer army and I'm letting Call a Duty know. And I'm letting Xbox know. That 50% increase as far as the game passes. It's probably why the numbers are far below Black Op 6.

More specifically, 70% as far as the Steam Player count. 70% below Blackop 6. So anyways, getting back into Blackop 7, the main thing you need to know is that it has a fully four-player co-op campaign right and that also leads into the negative reviews because of course if it's co-op first as far as how they want you to play it if you play single player i heard it's more monotonous and it's harder to take down certain enemies because it's made for co-op or up to four players and it's one of call their duties first ever i don't know why they don't make this huge shift but yeah actually that makes no sense to me it

you know keeping up with a single player mantra as far as uh the campaign was seen like a easy no-brainer but they wanted to switch it up go with the four-player co-op and now they're getting labeled the first the worst campaign of all time so i'm pretty sure 99% sure they're going to go back to single-player campaigns in the future and then when you look at certain um gameplay loops is more of the same as far as call of duty i don't think call of duty is capable of putting out just a bad shooter as far as how it feels, how the gameplay loop feels, how the overall game modes run. So from that aspect, I will say it's quiet as kept, but the multiplayer and zombies seem

to be pretty solid. And a lot of people, a lot of people don't have anything to say about the multiplayer and zombies. They just would want to focus on the campaign. But the Blackop Six Omni movement is back as far as any direction, sprint, and dive. Um, they did add wall running plus wall jumping. I have played black up seven as far as the beta. And let's just say, I think you can only wall run on certain specific walls, which,

you know, from a gameplay aspect, you would think you'd be it. If you see a wall, you can run on it. But it's just like specific walls that you can only like wall run on it from like a specific map perspective. Because when you're playing the game, um, you just can't run on any wall. If that makes sense, like it has to be map. map specific for the walls you run on, which is kind of weird, in my opinion, it's just kind of weird. So it definitely is more vertically inconsistent as far as the past games, right?

So multiplayer has 16 maps, 6-6 v6, two maps is 20 v20. Hold on now. They're trying to steal Battlefield's whole flow? Well, hey, Battlefield already did it. So I guess, you know, it's going to be hard for them to catch up with that one. But when it comes to zombies, it's basically a return to form as, The overall zombies loop is back to round-based. And of course, when it comes to round-based,

um, okay, I'm about to say, I thought I had it. Yeah, round-based, dark ether. I think that's what it's called.

Um, the maps are essence, salvage, I don't know, the returning aspect of zombies is essence, salvage, pack-a-punch, augments,

and gobogums. And then it's the largest zombies map ever. So, hopefully they entic, issue but you know for me i don't really play zombies for the large maps i like the easter eggs i like the actual story that went into the releases of the zombie maps but i think they went away from that ever since uh there was a black ops four that came out that did like zombies and brought back all the old maps i think they stopped doing the whole continuation of the zombie storyline so um

they did say that the dead ops arcade four is included so do have that what you will but at the end the day i really wanted to dive into the sales so now getting into now that we've done that let's get into the found up of Blackop 7 as when you look at IGM giving this game a six out of 10 they basically said call of duty black up seven campaign is a wild run thanks to the scope of his ambition but the big swings it takes don't always land leaving it an uneven step down from last year euro gamer gave it a three out of five saying it's a shift away from single player leaves call of duty with his most lopsided and homogamous this entry in decades. I don't even know what that means.

I ain't going to cap to you. Though what it does offer is consistently good fun when accepted on its own terms. Game rent gave it an 8 out of 10. And you'd be surprised. A lot of these scores is giving it high, like pretty high scores. I see a lot of 8, 9s out of 10. And it's the few 7 or lower scores

out of 10 that really was a reen off. Again, then to the higher scores, Game rank gave it an 8 out of 10, saying Call of Duty, Blackout, 7, robust. multiplayer and zombies offerings make up for the weakness of this co-op campaign. And then of course, screen rent gave it an 8 out of 10 saying the biggest black ops ever packed with content and fun, but with a weak campaign and a few aspects that need refinement.

So as you can tell, a lot of people are basically talking about the multiplayer and zombies in the same way that I am. and also pointing out the campaign has been lackluster just like I just did. So that's basically the consensus as far as Blackop 7. At the end of the day, you will have to play it for yourself to see if you enjoy it. Because, of course, with this being free to play for people who are on the game pass, which, you know, free to play is a stretch. You know, you do have to pay for game pass.

So I'm not even going to say it's free to play. But with this game being on the Xbox game pass, if you already have that, then I think at least try it out. But of course, what games like Battlefield 6, what games like Ready or Not, what games like Arc Raiders, I mean, there's just so many games that you could play besides Call of Duty. And it just met such competition

that it ended up being one of the worst received call of duties of all time. And I don't think it's his own fault except from the campaign. Because the multiplayer and zombie seems fine. But from the campaign aspect, it really got under people's skin. and that's seemingly the only thing people talk about. So with that being said, once again, this game was developed by Trajark Raven Software, and it's out on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series, X-Ns, Xbox 1, PC, and, yeah, it's not on the Switch.

You know, y'all was waiting for that, right? Y'all was waiting for that Switch version. I know y'all was waiting for it. All the gamers out there was like, man, it's not coming to the Switch. Gosh, darn it. Now, just play. So anyways, with that being said, click my link to my bio. Let me know on one of my social medias.

What do you think about Blackop 7 as far as this horrendous perception currently? And do you think is justified or do you believe that Black Op 7 isn't getting a fair shake?