Treyarch appears to be moving on from the Black Ops era after two consecutive games, and the studio is promising to create something new.
In a recent developer video, Treyarch confirmed that its latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Dev Talk would be the final one dedicated to the game. Treyarch design director Kevin Drew also teased that the studio is ready to make something new and something that nobody's ever experienced before.
With Black Ops 7 performing significantly below Black Ops 6 and Activision moving away from releasing Black Ops and Modern Warfare games back-to-back, what could this mean for Treyarch's next Call of Duty?
In this video, I look at Treyarch's comments, the reception and sales performance surrounding Black Ops 7, the studio's history with the franchise, and what its next Call of Duty could potentially look like.
What do you think Treyarch should do next? Let me know in the comments!
If you enjoyed the video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and ring the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos!
Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/JamesSchierer
My latest Patreon-exclusive video is How September Became One Of Gaming's Biggest Months. Join Patreon to support the channel and check out my exclusive content.
#CallOfDuty #BlackOps7 #Treyarch #GamingNews
In a recent developer video, Treyarch confirmed that its latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Dev Talk would be the final one dedicated to the game. Treyarch design director Kevin Drew also teased that the studio is ready to make something new and something that nobody's ever experienced before.
With Black Ops 7 performing significantly below Black Ops 6 and Activision moving away from releasing Black Ops and Modern Warfare games back-to-back, what could this mean for Treyarch's next Call of Duty?
In this video, I look at Treyarch's comments, the reception and sales performance surrounding Black Ops 7, the studio's history with the franchise, and what its next Call of Duty could potentially look like.
What do you think Treyarch should do next? Let me know in the comments!
If you enjoyed the video, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and ring the notification bell so you don't miss any future videos!
Support the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/JamesSchierer
My latest Patreon-exclusive video is How September Became One Of Gaming's Biggest Months. Join Patreon to support the channel and check out my exclusive content.
#CallOfDuty #BlackOps7 #Treyarch #GamingNews
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00:00Treyarch appears to be ready to turn the page on Call of Duty Black Ops 7.
00:04After spending the last two years working on back-to-back Black Ops games,
00:09the studio has now confirmed that its latest developer video dedicated to Black Ops 7 will be its last.
00:15But what really caught my attention wasn't simply that Treyarch is ending support for Black Ops 7,
00:20it's what the studio said about what comes next.
00:23Treyarch said it is ready to make something new, something that nobody has experienced before.
00:28And considering the reception and sales performance of Black Ops 7,
00:32that could potentially be a pretty significant change for the studio and for Call of Duty as a whole.
00:37So today we're going to look at what Treyarch actually said,
00:40why Black Ops 7 may have represented the end of an era for the studio,
00:44and what this could mean for the next Call of Duty that Treyarch works on.
00:49And before we get started, if you enjoy the video, please give it a thumbs up,
00:53subscribe to the channel, and ring the notification bell, so you don't miss any of my future videos.
00:59Let's get started.
01:01On September 16th, Treyarch released a new developer video discussing Call of Duty Black Ops 7 Season 6.
01:08Most of the video was focused on that upcoming season,
01:11but toward the end, Treyarch made it clear that this would be the studio's final developer talk dedicated to Black
01:16Ops 7.
01:17That makes sense considering that Season 6 is essentially bringing the game's support cycle towards its conclusion.
01:24But Treyarch didn't simply say goodbye and move on.
01:27The developers also talked about what it was like spending the last two years working on Black Ops,
01:32and that is where things get interesting.
01:35Treyarch design director Kevin Drew described the goodbye as bittersweet.
01:39He explained that over the previous two years, the team had learned a lot and had tried a lot of
01:44different things during what he called its current era.
01:47But then came the part that immediately got people's attention.
01:51Drew said,
01:52We're ready to make something new and something that nobody's ever experienced before.
01:57That's a pretty interesting statement from Treyarch,
01:59because the studio has spent the last two years making Black Ops games.
02:03Black Ops 6 arrived in 2024,
02:06Black Ops 7 followed in 2025,
02:08and now with Black Ops 7 wrapping up,
02:11Treyarch is talking about making something new.
02:14That doesn't officially confirm that Treyarch is abandoning the Black Ops franchise forever.
02:19The studio didn't announce its next game.
02:21It didn't reveal new setting,
02:23it didn't confirm a new subtitle,
02:25and it certainly didn't say there will never be another Black Ops game.
02:29But it does suggest that Treyarch is ready for a change,
02:32and considering what happened with Black Ops 7,
02:35that timing is especially interesting.
02:37Let's talk about Black Ops 7 itself.
02:39One important thing to establish here is that saying Black Ops 7 had a difficult year
02:44doesn't mean that absolutely nobody enjoyed it.
02:47In fact, that's worth remembering when discussing the game.
02:50One of the comments on the article basically makes this point,
02:53with Matt Walton saying that he remembered people saying the multiplayer was good,
02:57and pointing out that Call of Duty had produced plenty of campaigns that players didn't consider worth playing,
03:03and that's a fair distinction.
03:05A game can have individual components that people enjoy while still struggling overall.
03:10Multiplayer, zombies, and the campaign don't necessarily have to be judged as one single experience.
03:16Someone could enjoy the multiplayer and still dislike the campaign.
03:19Someone could enjoy zombies while having no interest in the multiplayer.
03:23And someone else could have enjoyed the entire game.
03:26So I don't think the story here should simply be that Black Ops 7 was universally hated.
03:31That would oversimplify what actually happened.
03:34The bigger story is that Black Ops 7 struggled to match the enormous performance of Black Ops 6.
03:40According to Sakana's 2025 US sales data, Black Ops 7 finished 5th for the entire year.
03:47That was still a very strong commercial result compared with most games.
03:51But for Call of Duty, it represented a major drop.
03:54It was the franchise's lowest annual US ranking since Call of Duty World at War in 2008.
04:00And there's another important piece of context here.
04:03Black Ops 7 was still the best-selling game in the United States during December of 2025.
04:08So we're not talking about a game that simply disappeared.
04:12We're talking about a Call of Duty game that remained a major seller,
04:15but performed considerably worse than what Activision had become accustomed to from the franchise.
04:21And that distinction is important because Call of Duty has operated at an extraordinary level for a very long time.
04:28Being the fifth best-selling game in the country might be fantastic for another franchise.
04:33For Call of Duty, however, it represented a significant decline.
04:37And there was another issue surrounding Black Ops 7.
04:41Players had just gone through Black Ops 6.
04:43Then one year later, they were being asked to move into another Black Ops game.
04:47That meant two consecutive years of the same sub-franchise.
04:50And Activision eventually confirmed that it would no longer release Call of Duty games in the same sub-series in
04:56consecutive years.
04:57That is a pretty major change.
04:59For years, the annual Call of Duty schedule relied heavily on recognizable sub-franchises.
05:05Modern Warfare.
05:06Black Ops.
05:08Modern Warfare.
05:09Black Ops.
05:10It created a predictable cycle, and there are obvious advantages to that.
05:14Players know what they're getting.
05:16The branding is recognizable.
05:18The developers have an established universe and gameplay identity to work with.
05:22But eventually, there is a risk that the annual release starts feeling less like an entirely new experience, and more
05:28like another installment in an established formula.
05:31The company has said that it wants more diversity and innovation in future Call of Duty releases, rather than simply
05:37continuing the back and forth between Black Ops and Modern Warfare.
05:41That makes Treyarch's latest comments particularly interesting, because the studio itself is now saying it wants to make something new.
05:49But here's the biggest question.
05:51What does Treyarch mean by something new?
05:54There are several possibilities.
05:55It could mean a completely new Call of Duty sub-series.
05:58It could mean a new setting.
06:00It could mean a different style of campaign.
06:02It could mean major changes to multiplayer.
06:04Or it could simply mean something that feels new while still existing inside the broader Call of Duty franchise.
06:12We don't know yet.
06:13And I think it's important not to turn Treyarch's statement into confirmation of something that hasn't actually been announced.
06:20Treyarch has already demonstrated that it can create different identities within Call of Duty.
06:24Before Black Ops, the studio worked on games such as World at War.
06:28Then Black Ops became its defining sub-franchise.
06:31Over the years, Treyarch has also experimented with different time periods, gameplay mechanics, multiplayer systems, zombies experiences, and campaign structures.
06:42So when someone at Treyarch says they're ready to make something that nobody has experienced before, there is a legitimate
06:48reason to pay attention.
06:49The studio has experienced creating new identities.
06:53The question is whether Activision will actually give Treyarch the freedom and development time to do it.
06:58There's another interesting part of Kevin Drew's comments.
07:02He didn't say that Treyarch had failed.
07:04He said the team had learned a lot.
07:06They had tried a lot of things.
07:08And now they were ready to make something new.
07:10That sounds less like Treyarch completely abandoning everything it did with Black Ops 7.
07:15And more like the studio acknowledging that experimentation is part of figuring out where the franchise should go next.
07:21And Black Ops 7 certainly experimented.
07:25The campaign moved into a much more futuristic direction.
07:29It incorporated unusual science fiction elements.
07:32It featured an open world structure and elements that were considerably different from the more traditional military storytelling associated with
07:40older Call of Duty campaigns.
07:41Whether players enjoyed those decisions or not, they were attempts to do something different.
07:46And that's why I think the next Treyarch project could be particularly interesting.
07:50The lesson may not be never try anything different.
07:53It could instead be keep experimenting but figure out what actually works.
07:58That's a much more useful lesson for a long running franchise.
08:02It's also important to mention that Treyarch itself didn't appear to view the last two years as a complete failure.
08:09Yel Miller, Treyarch's co-studio head, said the team was extremely proud of what it shipped.
08:14He pointed towards Black Ops 6 setting new benchmarks and described Black Ops 7 as the biggest Black Ops game
08:20ever.
08:21So there is a difference between how a company views the work it created and how portions of the audience
08:27respond to it.
08:28The commercial results of Black Ops 7 were weaker than Black Ops 6.
08:32But that doesn't erase everything developers accomplished.
08:35And it doesn't mean the people who enjoyed Black Ops 7 were somehow wrong for enjoying it.
08:40This is one of those situations where multiple things can be true at once.
08:44The game could have players who enjoyed its multiplayer.
08:47It could have people who enjoyed zombies.
08:49It could have people who liked the campaign.
08:51And it could still have struggled to reach the level of success expected from a Call of Duty release.
08:57And now we get to the part that I find most interesting.
09:00What does Treyarch do next?
09:02We already know that Modern Warfare 4 is coming next month.
09:06So Treyarch isn't immediately following Black Ops 7 with another Black Ops release.
09:11That gives the studio an opportunity to step away from the identity that has defined it for so long.
09:17Could Treyarch create another historical Call of Duty?
09:20Could it go even further into science fiction?
09:23Could it create an entirely new military setting?
09:26Could it develop a new sub-franchise?
09:28Or could Activision eventually allow Treyarch to work on something completely outside of Call of Duty?
09:34That last possibility is probably the biggest wild card.
09:38The statement we have right now specifically concerns Treyarch making something new.
09:42But we don't have confirmation that this means a new IP.
09:46So for now, the safest interpretation is simply that Treyarch appears to be moving beyond the Black Ops error it
09:52has just completed.
09:53And honestly, that might be exactly what makes its next project worth watching.
09:59But this isn't just about Treyarch.
10:01It's about the future of Call of Duty.
10:03Activision has already acknowledged that the franchise can't simply continue alternating between Modern Warfare and Black Ops forever.
10:09And now we're seeing Treyarch talk about making something new.
10:13That suggests the company is at least attempting to change the way it approaches the annual franchise.
10:18The challenge is making sure something new actually means something new.
10:21A different name isn't enough.
10:23A new set of maps isn't enough.
10:25A different group of weapons isn't necessarily enough.
10:28If Call of Duty wants players to become excited about these games again, the difference between releases have to feel
10:34meaningful.
10:36And that doesn't necessarily mean reinventing the entire franchise every year.
10:40It could mean allowing each development team to establish a stronger identity.
10:44It could mean giving studios more time.
10:47It could mean experimenting with different settings and gameplay ideas.
10:50Or it could simply mean giving players a reason to feel like the next game is more than another annual
10:55update.
10:57For now, Treyarch's future remains a mystery.
10:59We know that Black Ops 7 is entering its final season.
11:02We know Treyarch has spent the last two years working on Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7.
11:07We know Black Ops 7 performed significantly below Black Ops 6 in the U.S. sales rankings.
11:13And we know Treyarch is now saying that it's ready to make something new.
11:16Something that nobody has experienced before.
11:19What that ultimately becomes is something we'll have to wait to find out.
11:22But after years of Black Ops being one of the defining identities within Call of Duty,
11:27I think the possibility of Treyarch stepping outside that comfort zone is certainly something worth keeping an eye on.
11:34Maybe the next Treyarch Call of Duty will be another familiar experience with a new coat of paint.
11:39Maybe it will be something completely different.
11:41Right now, we simply don't know.
11:43And perhaps that's the most interesting part.
11:45For the first time in a while, there is a genuine question surrounding what Treyarch's next chapter will actually look
11:51like.
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12:16If you enjoyed the video, please give it a thumbs up.
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12:24And let me know in the comments, what do you think Treyarch should do next?
12:28Should it create another Black Ops game eventually?
12:31Develop a completely new Call of Duty sub-franchise?
12:34Or take the series in an entirely different direction?
12:37I'd love to hear what you think.
12:40Thank you for your support.
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