Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is, for all intents and purposes, a spiritual sequel to Black Ops 2. That applies to the narrative, of which Black Ops 6 is also relevant, but it also comes into play in multiplayer. Black Ops 2 is widely considered to be one of the best entries across the whole Call of Duty series, not just amongst the Black Ops subseries, so Treyarch has also brought back weapons, maps, and even camos from the 2012 game.
On a recent video call with Matt Scronce, design director at Treyarch, and Yale Miller, senior director of production, I spoke to them at length about Black Ops 7’s map design, but also touched on Black Ops 2’s influence on this year’s entry, and the decisions that went into choosing exactly what parts of that installment they wanted to carry forward.
One highlight for me is the return of the M8A1 assault rifle, by far the most popular weapon in the Black Ops 2 meta, especially in competitive play. Scronce referred to it as “the icon” during our chat, explaining that Treyarch “loves a burst rifle, so I challenged our lead weapons designer, Pablo [Ortiz], to put the gun back in the competitive meta after pro players came in and tested it. I want to see it in the Call of Duty League (CDL), I want to see it in ranked play, so let’s work closely with those players to make sure that can happen.”
The M8A1 isn’t the only returning weapon, though, as the Peacekeeper SMG is also coming back. That struck me as a slightly more unusual choice though, because while it was popular 13 years ago, the MSMC was the stronger SMG choice. Scronce explained it was more to do with its design though: “The Peacekeeper was the series’ first ever post-launch weapon, and it looks very near-future, 2035-esque, so that was what the team gravitated towards. We have other Black Ops 2-inspired weapons too though, plus some from other Black Ops games, and post-launch, we’ll have some other fun ones we haven’t seen for a while.”
When it comes to balancing weapons, though, the Black Ops 7 team is keeping a watchful eye — but not promising heavy changes as of yet. The M8A1 was incredibly strong in Black Ops 2 and it was also one of the best guns in the Black Ops 7 beta, but that sounds like where the team wants it to be. There’s such a thing as being too powerful though, and Scronce explained that they will “try to nip it in the bud as soon as possible, depending on how disruptive it is.”
“I’ve personally had to change my thinking on weapon balance over the years. As a designer, you want to be able to tune a gun perfectly once and never touch it again, or at least that’s what you’d think you want. We live in a world now where there’s a metagame and players want to experience meta shifts, so we need to think about that balance where you’re trying to introduce a new meta, but you also don’t want to give people whiplash.
“We never want to nerf something into the ground where it’s your favorite gun but you log on and now it’s shooting marshmallows, so you’re like, ‘What the hell have you done to my favorite gun?’ I think we did a pretty damn good job in Black Ops 6 with weapon balance. Obviously, as many times as we hit the Jackal, that guy would still be popular, which I think is down to how good it feels to use, so it’d be picked even if it was underpowered. Ultimately, though, we want everything to be able to have a chance and be viable, and as we move through post-launch trying to adjust and bring in a fresh new meta, we’re going to have a ton of weapons we introduce that will inherently inject themselves into the meta and create new gameplay.”
That new gameplay will emerge in various changes to Call of Duty’s game modes — specifically, the all-new Overload mode that will be replacing Control in the CDL. Scronce’s “challenge” this time around was to “create a new competitive game mode that people will have fun with in public matches, but pros and competitive players will also want to play. Control will still exist, but Overload is an example of bringing in a new mode with a specific goal of making it competitive.”
Unfortunately, it’s bad news for anyone hoping modes of old will make a return. Capture the Flag is a huge favorite of mine — and Scronce’s too, he says — but “as much as we may love it, and other old school players may love it, it’s waned in popularity over time to where it doesn’t make much sense to keep it around. Some gamemodes just fall out of fashion, and there is such a thing as having too many gamemodes, options, and playlists, which create this ‘I don’t know what to play’ analysis paralysis. Not to mention having so many playlists in a low population region, that’s going to hurt the experience for those players.”
Speaking of matchmaking, we also touched upon the skill-based matchmaking changes going from the beta into the full game, where the algorithm that has been used for the last handful of series entries to determine matchmaking based on player skill level will be scrapped in favor of one that prioritizes region and connection quality. This will apply to every playlist in Black Ops 7 sans one “moshpit” option — which offers a mixture of gamemodes in one — and ranked play, arriving in season two.
This decision was mostly met with a positive reception from the community, but as expected, some players weren’t keen. The complaints mostly came from players who, by their own admission online, aren’t as skilled at the game as others, and would get stomped in each match they played, killing their drive to keep playing.
Treyarch, in theory, wants to cater to every type of player, so I inquired about how they’ll ensure it’s still a fair experience for those who don’t want to sweat every match. Miller explained that due to it being a beta, “by definition you’re going to have the best players and the most engaged fans taking part. Once the full game goes live, we’ll have a lot more players, so our hope is that a system where skill is minimally considered will allow for variety. The key part is that there will be times when you’re going to get punched. It’s just the reality of it, but when it’s less driven by an algorithm, you’re going to end up with different experiences where you’re the one who’s on the better skill side versus when you’re not.
“I think all of us have experiences of bad streaks where you keep getting punched in matches, but then you have one that goes alright, and it gives you a sense of progression and improvement. So we’re basically hoping people get enough variety. A situation where everyone feels like they have no chance in every match is not a good one, but part of this is that we’re taking a swing at trying something different. We have decades of inspiration of how matches and your favorite experiences were on a game like Black Ops 2, which had classic matchmaking, so we’re very inspired by the way those systems worked. The best answer I can give is that we don’t actually know exactly, we want to drive a system that has variety, but part of that comes from the random role of who you get matched up with on any given day, time, region, and so on.”
They followed up on this in a written answer via email for more clarity, explaining that their “goal for everyone is to focus on the fun. Research still informs what we do, nothing’s changed. Over the past year, we’ve expanded our data centers worldwide, which improved connectivity and gave us more flexibility in how we build matches. Overall, our goal is very simple: all players having more fun playing. We’ll continue to get better and better through our data and through community feedback, which we value a ton.”
