Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 currently has less wishlists on Steam than the Palworld dating sim. It’s ranked 173rd as of writing, behind the Killer Bean game at 73rd, and the Gothic remake in 17th place. Battlefield 6 seems to be hogging the spotlight right now, and with Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 set to come out in roughly two weeks, should Treyarch and Activision Blizzard be worried?
Well, one thing is for certain, Call of Duty hasn’t had this much competition in a while. The obvious challenger is Battlefield 6, which not only is easily outperforming any other entry in the series in over a decade, but has outright fired shots at Call of Duty’s recent tendency to focus on celebrity over realistic modern military aesthetics.
We’ve already seen some drastic shifts from the standard Call of Duty strategy. The game is cutting off some of the gaudier cosmetics available in previous games, resigning them only to Warzone while keeping the newest iteration of multiplayer rooted in the expected setting. Would this have happened if Battlefield wasn’t speaking directly to the FPS crowd? Maybe, maybe not – but it seems the competition to the FPS throne has caused the needle move for the CoD franchise to some degree. Is that why we’re seeing the CoD franchise so far down the wishlists on Steam?
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Battlefield 6’s success is one factor, but elsewhere we’re seeing less direct competitors, such as Arc Raiders, which looks to be an exceptional release in the extraction shooter scene. Regardless of how things play out, Call of Duty hasn’t had such a contested release for years. Such are the dangers of sitting on the throne for too long.