Activision’s Annual Release Machine Is Bleeding Call of Duty Dry
Black Ops 7 limps onto Steam with the lowest launch headcount in Call of Duty’s Steam history—just over 100,000 concurrent players versus Black Ops 6’s 315,000+—and an abysmal 1.7 Metacritic user score, making it the franchise’s worst-rated entry.
Call of Duty finally hit the wall. Black Ops 7 launched and face-planted, Battlefield showed up early and actually worked, and players who used to buy on muscle memory are suddenly saying 'nah, I am good.'
The numbers are rough
Black Ops 7 arrived on November 14 and posted the lowest Steam player count in Call of Duty history: a peak a hair over 100,000. For context, Black Ops 6 cleared 315,000+ at launch last year. Even worse, the Metacritic user score is sitting at 1.7 as I write this, which makes it the worst-rated entry the series has ever put out.
Meanwhile, EA slid Battlefield 6 out a month earlier, hit 747,000 concurrent players on Steam, and actually kept that momentum while Black Ops 7 stumbled. Then ARC Raiders dropped right behind it, giving people yet another place to go if they were tired of the annual shooter treadmill.
'Call of Duty is failing now because it is an annual release and they push their teams to hell and back to get a CoD out the door. I do not think they will change that until there are several consecutive bad years, but CoD really does need a break IMO (for players and devs).'
- Tom Henderson, Nov 21, 2025
How we got here
This did not come out of nowhere. The slow bleed has been visible for years, and Black Ops 7 just snapped whatever goodwill was left. Treyarch and Raven were clearly racing to hit that sacred November window, and the campaign paid the price. It plays like a Fortnite Creative proof-of-concept: oversized, cartoony boss fights, awkward fear-toxin detours, and plot threads that evaporate. Bold ideas are great; incoherent execution is not. The series that used to nail momentum and clarity delivered a grab bag of tech demos instead.
Longtime fans are saying the quiet part out loud. You see a lot of versions of: why does this franchise release every single year like a sports game, and why does it feel like DLC being sold as a new game? I have seen folks who have bought every CoD since forever skip this one for the first time since Cold War, and even the 'launch night with the dads' squads are tapping out. Others drew a line when skins started feeling more important than the game itself; some have not touched CoD since 2023's MW3 but still miss what it used to be.
The 'Fortnite-ification' complaints are not just about goofy outfits. Activision has turned CoD into a live service platform that hard-resets annually. So you grind a battle pass, chase rotating store bundles, and feed FOMO systems until next year's reset wipes the slate and the spending starts over. It is exhausting.
The treadmill behind the scenes
On the development side, the load rotates, but the calendar never blinks. That is the problem.
- Infinity Ward - Main developer, 2003 to present
- Treyarch - Main developer, 2005 to present
- Sledgehammer Games - Main developer, 2011 to present
- Raven Software - Support / co-developer, 2015 to present
Studios like Beenox, High Moon, and Demonware pitch in too. Whoever draws the short straw for the lead slot gets less time than the project actually needs. The deadline does not move because that annual sales spike is baked into shareholder expectations. If the work slips, tough. Ship anyway.
Can competition force a reset?
Infinity Ward is already deep into the 2026 game, widely expected to be Modern Warfare 4. It is very hard to imagine Activision changing course midstream, no matter how ugly Black Ops 7's trajectory gets. The open question is whether they learn anything from watching players drift to games that simply respect their time.
Some fans still think one great CoD could turn the ship around next year. Maybe. But 'just make the next one better' ignores why these games keep launching broken: the schedule forces them out before they are ready. Treyarch will eat blame for Black Ops 7, but the timeline set them up to fail.
Next year is an even bigger test
GTA 6 is targeting the exact fall window Activision loves for Call of Duty. Trying to steal attention from Rockstar's next capital-E Event makes Battlefield 6 look like a warm-up lap. Early sales paint the picture already: in Europe, Black Ops 7's launch weekend was down 63% compared to Battlefield 6 across physical and digital, and down 50% compared to Black Ops 6 year-over-year, according to industry tracking relayed by ModernWarzone.
The bigger problem
Being 'the Call of Duty company' used to be Activision's superpower. Now it looks like an anchor. The business model depends on one franchise staying on top through repetition. That worked until players had better options and realized they do not have to accept whatever ships in November.
Breaking the cycle would mean swallowing a short-term revenue dip to rebuild trust long-term. Public companies almost never choose that path unless they have no choice.
So what happens first: Activision easing off the gas, or a couple more rough years forcing the issue? Have you stopped buying CoD after years of loyalty, or are you still holding out for a comeback? Drop your take below.