Call of Duty and Battlefield have been duking it out in a first-person shooter themed war for almost two decades, which is quite meta when you think about it. While the former has had a new release every year since 2003 (as long as you count 2004’s Finest Hour as a full game and not a spin-off), the latter typically only sees a release every two to four years. But in 2025, the two have aligned not just in release window, but in setting as well, with both taking place in near-future warzones. For the first time in more than a decade, the similarities between Battlefield 6 and Black Ops 7 have set the stage for a good old-fashioned showdown.
The two series started out with very distinct audiences and styles. Call of Duty was fast-paced, focused on 6v6 matches on relatively small maps, with only Ground War offering larger scale battles with up to a whopping nine players on each team. Meanwhile, Battlefield would offer up to 32v32 player matches on Windows PC, set on huge, sprawling locales with tanks, choppers, and jets galore. It felt like a grander representation of war, whereas Call of Duty focused on combat at a much smaller scale.
Over time, those differences have shrunk to the point where, today, both games are effectively competing for the same audience. Modern Warfare (2019) took the Ground War playlist and revamped it to host up to 64 players in one match, and introduced, you guessed it, vehicles. All of this was set on larger maps than you’d find in the core playlists. Fast forward to this year’s Black Ops 7 and, while Ground War no longer exists, Skirmish does — a 20v20 playlist that offers effectively the same thing.
Battlefield 6, on the other hand, still has plenty of epic-scale warfare for players, but to combat Call of Duty’s foray into the bigger stuff, it’s taking a slice of their pie too. Alongside the massive “All-Out Warfare” playlists, there are also “CQB” playlists that focus on infantry-only fights, taking place on small sections of the larger maps. When I reviewed Battlefield 6’s multiplayer shortly after launch, these didn’t land quite as hard as the huge matches Battlefield is renowned for, but they’ve been growing on me since. It feels like Call of Duty resting on its laurels and even though there’s plenty to like about Black Ops 7’s multiplayer, there’s no escaping the fact it feels very formulaic, following in the very close footsteps of Black Ops 6.
When Battlefield 2042 launched to pretty much universal condemnation, it never quite managed to recover its reputation. Players felt scorned, but the knock-on effect of this is that Battlefield Studios ensured they didn’t make the same mistakes again, four years on. Battlefield 6’s launch was smooth, everything that made 2042 a failure was addressed, and modes like Battlefield Portal helped fill any holes in playlists, such as offering a hardcore ruleset, plus offered players a creative outlet. Battlefield 6 felt fresh, and as a result, it felt like it respected its playerbase and was trying to win them back. It succeeded.
So from a multiplayer perspective, both Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6’s offerings are much the same. Fast-paced, arena-based combat with small squad sizes, large, open maps with vehicles, and everything in between. The gunplay in the former feels more polished, almost cleaner to a degree, with that trademark Call of Duty flair it’s always had, and while it would be a stretch to say Battlefield 6’s isn’t also impressive, it has somewhat of a rugged feel to it. Perhaps it’s their pseudo-realistic approach, which Call of Duty could once be argued to have had but has long since abandoned, that causes this slightly more rudimentary feel when you’re mowing down enemies from afar with an LMG or picking off a target from hundreds of meters away with a sniper rifle.
However, Battlefield 6’s one main difference is its environmental destruction. It’s always been a selling point for the series as it’s mightily impressive, and Call of Duty has never been able to compete in that regard. Whether you’re posted up in a building and you get blown to smithereens by a tank, or you’re encroaching on enemy snipers with a rocket launcher to send them tumbling to their doom, it results in some truly epic, cinematic moments.
Multiplayer isn’t all these games have to offer though, as they both also have campaigns to get your teeth stuck into. Problem is, neither are worth writing home about. As explained in our Black Ops 7 campaign review, it seemingly forgets everything that made the single-player offering in its prequel, Black Ops 6, fantastic, including the whole part about it being single-player in the first place.
It’s intended to be a co-op campaign, and while you can complete it solo, it’s little more than a loosely threaded rampage through waves upon waves of enemies with a completely nonsensical narrative. It has the odd redeeming feature, such as some totally absurd yet still quite fun boss fights, but there’s very little reason to play it, especially since Endgame, the mode that was once unlocked upon campaign completion, is now available for everybody.
So what about Battlefield 6? Well, one point goes to it because it is a single-player offering, but it tries too hard to embody old Call of Duty campaigns and loses its identity along the way. Our Battlefield 6 campaign review explains how these characters are introduced to us with little reason to form an attachment, yet we’re expected to be gutted when something devastating happens?
It’s also somewhat nonsensical, but for different reasons. It’s not a difficult thing to achieve, but it’s more grounded than Black Ops 7, despite jumping from one seemingly random location, such as the rock of Gibraltar, to another, like rolling past the Pyramids of Giza in a tank. Also, despite Battlefield’s historic focus on aerial combat and the excellent missions revolving around it in previous campaigns, Battlefield 6 doesn’t feature a single aerial mission.
Both games supply extras beyond the two core modes though, with Black Ops 7’s coming in the form of Zombies, and the aforementioned Endgame. The latter is effectively a battle royale x DMZ (Modern Warfare 2, 2022) mode with a sprinkling of Zombies thrown in for good measure, and while it’s an interesting take on an open world with plenty of objectives to tackle, there are simply other games that do something similar in a much more effective way.
Zombies, on the other hand, is bigger and bolder than it’s ever been before, and if you know you’re a fan of the round-based undead mode, it is absolutely worth jumping in for. As always, there’s a lengthy, complex Easter egg quest to complete, plenty of fun weapons to use, and even a truck to explore the much larger map with.
How do these compare to Battlefield 6? Well, while it doesn’t have anything to directly compete with, it does have Portal, a player-creation tool akin to Halo’s Forge mode. Portal has plenty of custom modes made by Battlefield Studios, but it also allows players to create their own modes, and there are numerous Zombies imitations, amongst others. None anywhere near as polished as Black Ops 7‘s, but Portal has a lot of potential, and will go a long way to making sure Battlefield 6 stays relevant until a sequel lands (which may or may not be years away).
In essence, both the Battlefield and Call of Duty series are closer than they’ve ever been before, and there’s no “correct” answer as to which one is better. Battlefield 6 feels fresher, because it’s been so long since the series has impressed, while Black Ops 7 suffers from coming out just 12 months after Black Ops 6 and not having the time to innovate, but both games are enjoyable in their own right, and I’ll be playing both extensively. If I had to choose one? Let’s go with the one that starts with a B.
