Does Black Ops 7 Signal the End of Single-Player Call of Duty?

Without a shadow of a doubt, Call of Duty is primarily a multiplayer game. Following the meteoric rise of the original Modern Warfare’s PvP, the series has become an industry behemoth, and its success is entirely down to its online modes. And yet, year after year, Activision has dedicated a significant amount of cash to funding elaborate single-player campaigns.

As someone who grew up on the likes of Half-Life and Halo, these campaigns are the reason I’ve come back to Call of Duty year in, year out. Sure, it’s been a rocky relationship, but it’s been worth enduring for the really good ones – like last year’s fantastically orchestrated Black Ops 6, with its conveyor belt of exciting mission concepts.

But this year is different.

Black Ops 7 specifically brands its story mode as a “co-op campaign,” and has been designed around a four-person squad. As our review points out, it is a significantly worse experience solo, to the point we could never recommend playing it alone. And so the entire Call of Duty package this year is multiplayer, a fact that has me wondering about the future of the series. Has it finally given in to the writing on the wall? Is COD single-player over?