Just like an old cringeworthy fashion trend, wall-running has come back around in Call of Duty with Black Ops 7, and we got our first taste of it this past weekend with the BETA. I put just enough time in with Multiplayer and some Zombies sprinkled in to achieve the Max level the Beta allowed. I did enjoy my time with the Beta. Felt the gameplay was a mix of Black Ops 2 and Black Ops 4, with everything the last few CODs have been.
Now I know a lot of members here at Pork Chop Platoon are bemoaning the reintroduction of Wall-running to the series, especially after last year’s movement addition of Omni-movement. I have been really happy with Omni-movement. The freedom of movement combined with gunplay makes for interesting moment-to-moment gameplay. Definitely the most innovative addition to the Call of Duty series since Sliding was introduced in Ghosts. Although I do realize many members did not like it, and with Omni-movement, you could pull off some ridiculously unrealistic maneuvers. So, thinking about that combined with wall-running?! Well, let’s say I was apprehensive at best.
After playing the Beta, I can safely say that this is not the wall-running of yesteryear for better or worse. I’ll get to the worst parts later. I was trying to be facetious with the article’s title, but it’s also kind of true. This wall-running is a grounded or more realistic version of what we’d last seen in the series with Infinite Warfare and much more than Black Ops 4 or Titanfall from the same era. You’re not going to be able to run around a half-pipe of a wall to the other side of the map. This felt less like wall-running and more like being able to jump off the side of a wall, a small two-step jump. I didn’t exactly have an easy time with it either. There were many times I fell into oblivion. So, I don’t think we are going to see too many superhuman wall-jumping twitchy elites out in public matches. It’s more for map traversal and less for combat. I later changed my settings to use Auto-assist wall-running, which made it easier to engage with and helped create better flow while traversing the maps. The maps themselves have hints to suggest the best places to wall run for traversal, with certain walls having a hexagonal pattern on them or someone’s boot scuffs moving up the wall. Most of the time, it’s not really needed, but there are certain sections of maps where it’s useful for a cut through or gaining height to get up a level. So there’s a tinge of a learning curve, but nothing that should deter anyone, even us old guys.
What also made this a more grounded and slower experience, despite being able to run on walls, is that Omni-movement got a nerf of sorts. Slides and dives didn’t seem as if they were launching me as far or as fast as in Black Ops 6. I felt it made for more deliberate map movement, and I also didn’t see as many dolphin divers floppin’ around trying to pull off crazy shots. That said, there are ways to bring a little bit of the BO6 umph back. Perks. Applying Dexterity and Lightweight helped push the limits of dives and slides, which made it feel closer to the current Call of Duty. Another thing that slowed things down was making Tac Sprint a Perk. If you want to tuck that rifle and haul ass, you’re gonna have to waste a Perk slot on it, but in doing so, you are also dropping your base sprint speed. The new Black Ops 7 base Sprint speed is slightly higher than Black Ops 6 is currently, perhaps to make up for the removal of Tac Sprint as a default movement. Odd decision, not sure how I feel about it. There will still be melee guys running with Tac Sprint, but I don’t feel it’s worth the perk slot when I can be moving at a higher base speed than a Tac Sprinter while also having a better Sprint-to-Fire time.
Now for the worst part of wall-running, which I have to believe will be patched out or at least nerfed vastly, is that you can chain wall-running jumps together if you hit it quickly enough on the same wall or nearby wall and kind of bounce and peek up over obstacles, even if you can’t or aren’t supposed to climb over it. So I learned quickly that if I found the right spots, I could use the action to pop myself up, take a peek at sections of the map that I would normally not be able to see from that location, and sometimes even hit shots at the height of my bounce. It wasn’t incredibly prevalent during my playtime, was hard to pull off on demand, and most of the time I felt it was randomly activated. So I’m not too worried about the ability of all the twitchy kids being able to pull them off in the final game, but it’s worth mentioning, while also keeping in mind this is a BETA.
Outside of that, all the familiar COD fair from the last several games in the series is on display. Menus are all structured the same. Graphics look great. Guns and Weapons all felt fantastic to utilize. Scorestreaks and perks were all filling familiar roles. Maps and modes flowed well when I wasn’t yeeting myself off a seaside cliff or down a bottomless pit with an errant slide or bounce off a wall. Equipment and Scorestreaks now have their own leveling-up addition with Overclock. Overclocks can be unlocked to add another feature or buff to the item. Interesting, although I didn’t have a lot of time to experiment with Overclocks. Gunsmith is still great. Hit detection felt very fair. I never once raged about how I could have gotten eliminated in specific situations. Both Core and Hardcore gameplay were feeling good as far as TTK. Hardcore objective modes have been my butter since Black Ops 2, and it shone for Black Ops 7’s Beta.
The one thing I didn’t see included from the current COD is all the jankiness. For a BETA, I expected more issues or at least as many as I have been experiencing from Black Ops 6! It seemed glitch-free for the most part. I did have an issue installing, which others did as well. When the COD app updated, it uninstalled all of the games held within. So it was asking me to install not only the BETA but all of Black Ops 6. I installed the BETA and left it at that. I have really dug Black Ops 6 movement and gunplay this past year, but the jankiness, crashing, horrible Operator skins, having to restart the game at least 5 times every time I want to play, and Custom Private Lobbies never working caused me to stop playing seriously long ago. The hassle wasn’t worth it. So fine, Activision, you want to uninstall the game, then I guess that’s how it will stay. I can wait for Black Ops 7’s release. During the Beta itself, I only experienced one crash, which happened after an intense match in the transition back to the lobby. Nothing big. Even in-game things ran smoothly. For reference, I play on Xbox Series X.
To wrap this all up, I have high hopes for Black Ops 7 being stable and a fun COD for the next year. The gameplay seems spot on and reminds me a lot of Black Ops 2, which was my favorite COD to date. Don’t let the Futuristic setting turn you off, we get it, they now have robot parts, cool. This version of Wall-running is also not nearly as bad as you remember from past titles. I wholeheartedly recommend PCP members try out this upcoming Call of Duty when it is released in November. Now about those Private Lobbies! If they run as well as the BETA we could be living it up with Custom Game Nights again.
Can’t wait to slide, dive, and now wall-run into the full release, but first… Bring on BattleField 6!
Phlipups
Community Manager
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