The mission is clear: Stop scrolling, head to Best Buy and secure a new copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 before it’s too late.
While your real-life mission might be a little less apocalyptic than what’s going on in the world of the game, Black Ops 7 is arguably one of the hottest game releases of the year, and likely to be on every gamer’s list this holiday season. That is, if you can get your hands on it.
Over two decades after it first launched, Call of Duty has grown to become one of the gaming world’s most popular shooters, reportedly earning billions in revenue since it was introduced back in 2003. Following the release of Black Ops 6 last year, the wait is finally over: Gamers can pick up the SteelBook Edition (Playstation) of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 now at Best Buy, both online and in stores. The game officially launched on Nov. 14, and retails for $69.99 for the PS5 edition. Along with PS5, CoD fans can also snag a copy of Black Ops 7 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4, and PC.
So where does the game pick up? Ten years into the future – and this time, a star-studded cast, including This Is Us actor Milo Ventimiglia, is coming along for the campaign. According to the game’s official description on the retailer’s site, the Black Ops 7 «world is on the brink of chaos, ravaged by violent conflict and psychological warfare. David Mason (Ventimiglia) leads an elite JSOC team on a covert mission to the sprawling Mediterranean city of Avalon. While there, they discover a sophisticated plot that won’t just plunge the world into chaos, it will pull them into their own haunting pasts.»
Even if you’ve never entered the CoD world or experienced the infamous Black Ops character, Raul Menendez, one look at the game’s trailer confirms Black Ops 7 is packed with next-level graphics, non-stop action, and an unrecognizable world that will be unlike anything else you play this year.
Here’s a little refresher:
No stranger to CoD, Ventimiglia plays David Mason in Black Ops 7, who’s the son of the franchise character Alex Mason. «I played earlier versions of Call of Duty – I played Modern Warfare, I’ve done some Black Ops,» Ventimiglia said in an interview of being part of the new game. «I got away from it a little bit only because life is busy, when you have a baby and when you have a lot of film and TV work to do. But I feel like this was a nice reintroduction to the world of gaming.»
For longtime Call of Duty fans, Black Ops 7 follows a familiar storyline, yet takes place decades into the future of the game. «One takes place in the 1990s, you know, early 1991, and the other takes place in 2035, and that really gave them very distinct identities from the start,» Treyarch associate creative director Miles Leslie previously said of Black Ops 6 and 7. «There are threads from Black Ops 6 that weave into Black Ops 7, and it allowed us that opportunity to take the learnings from and really the momentum from Black Ops 6, and carry that into Black Ops 7.»
The SteelBook Edition for PS5 features 16 six-versus-six maps, along with a few 20-versus-20 maps, according to Best Buy. While the game has plenty of fresh new maps and modes, there was still some unfinished business leftover from Black Ops 2, which was released in 2012.
«We left Black Ops 2 and there was actually way more story to tell,» Leslie said. «David Mason, he’s carrying scars, both internally and externally, and the characters around him have also been affected.»
Don’t wait to add Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 to your cart now at Best Buy before it sells out.