At the end of the Xbox Games Showcase, Microsoft surprised gamers with the debut teaser for the latest Call of Duty. While official information is still scarce, here’s everything we know about Black Ops 7.
Setting and Story
While the last several Call of Duty games have elected to stick to historical or modern settings, Black Ops 7 is heading back to the future. Despite being numbered to follow 2024’s Black Ops 6, the latest CoD actually has way more in common with the classic Black Ops 2.
Like Black Ops 2, 7 will take players a decade ahead of the game’s release and predict a near future full of technology which revolutionizes the way wars are fought. Black Ops 7 takes place in 2035, with characters from Black Ops 2 returning in the form of David Mason, Menendez, and Harper. The announcement blog further teases the setting as a “world on the brink of chaos, ravaged by violent conflict and psychological warfare”.
While story details are still being kept classified, the cryptic teaser does give fans a taste of what to expect. That trailer is filled with surreal, mind bending environments which confirm the spirit of Black Ops as a trippy espionage thriller is still alive and well. Several of these aforementioned locales allude back to classic characters and missions from early Black Ops campaigns. Most notably, David Mason confronts Raul Menendez in a recreation of the room has father was interrogated in over the course of the original Black Ops story.
Multiplayer, Zombies, and More
As exciting as a new Black Ops Campaign can be, Call of Duty’s suite of multiplayer modes is what keeps players hooked all year. That being said, the Campaign does actually fit in here, too. Perhaps whats most exciting about Black Ops 7’s story is that fans will be able to experience it with others. In a rare move for the franchise, this year’s campaign is confirmed to be playable co-op or solo, allowing fans to play the narrative out together for the first time in a decade.
For fans of Call of Duty’s PvP offerings, Black Ops 7 is expected to have the classic Multiplayer modes, as well as some new ones. Black Ops 7 will continue the trend of a direct sequel to a previous Call of Duty entry in an odd numbered year; just as Modern Warfare III followed up II the year before it. However, unlike MWIII, Black Ops 7 is confirmed to have several brand-new Multiplayer maps at launch, rather than just a collection of remasters.
The seasons of Warzone content to follow the Black Ops 7 launch seem to feature a new large-scale map called Avalon. Several prominent CoD content leakers have claimed Avalon was originally set to release with Black Ops 6, but was delayed too make room for the re-introduction of Verdansk. Several of the Black Ops 6 Multiplayer maps take place in or around Avalon, and the surrounding area matches up with some brief looks at gameplay in the first Black Ops 7 teaser.
A brief look at this year’s Zombies offering was also shown. Black Ops 7 will once again feature the classic Round Based Zombies mode. Our first look at the horde mode this year shows a group of zombies being alerted by the turning on of headlights in a rural environment. Many fans believe this could be some sort of remake or reimagining of Tranzit, the launch map for Black Ops 2 Zombies, as the teaser images seem to include that map’s Farm locale and bus. Fans have long wanted a reinvention of the controversial map on new hardware, and with Black Ops 7 being a direct sequel to 2, the time may finally be right.
A full reveal of Black Ops 7 is promised for this summer. In the meantime, you can play Black Ops 6 & Warzone on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Black Ops 7 will be available on all those platforms as well. It is unknown if and when the game will come to the Nintendo Switch 2.
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Bringing a game to market is an expensive and time consuming proposition (follow along as we take Froggy Bazaar from an idea to publication & beyond). It’s easy to over-estimate the value of your game idea, and underestimate the value of the rest of the process of bringing a game to market.
In short, even if your game rocks it isn’t worth it for anyone else to steal it.
Stealing a game would also come with a lot of risk. The indie design community is small and close-knit. And indie game consumers likely wouldn’t be forgiving towards a publisher who stole another designer’s game.
You do occasionally see successful games re-implemented like Cards Against Humanity broadly re-implemented Apples to Apples with NSFW content. But, I don’t know of any instances where an indie design was ripped off especially before publication.
So, get to playtesting!
Where to Find Playtesters
I like to think of playtesting in a couple of categories each with a different audience, and with different goals. Where you go to find playtesters in each stage will vary. And, as you playtest more you’ll be sourcing playtesters more broadly outside of your immediate circle.
Early Stage
The earliest stages of playtesting you’ll be figuring out whether your game is fun and functional. This will mostly be playing by yourself and roping family and friends into games while you iterate on rules.
Where to find early stage playtesters:
Mid Stage
As your game progresses you’ll be focused on developing the game, balancing it, and finding your audience. In some playtests you’ll be focused on getting feedback on specific mechanisms or interactions, in others you’ll want broad feedback, and in others you’ll be focused on what gamers your game gels with.
Note: All of the images depicting game components in this article show early concept or playtest art.
A Time to Plant.
It was 18(!!) years ago that Chad and I started talking about designing a Combat Commander: Vietnam game together. Of course, Chad was the master crafter of Combat Commander and knew the CC design a bazillion times better than I did, but he didn’t really know anything about Vietnam. I probably know more about that war/period than I know about any other in military history, and I love Combat Commander, so a co-design with Chad and myself seemed like a good fit. But we both were really busy with other projects, so we decided to work on CC: Vietnam in the margins, not caring if it took even a decade to get to our game tables in finished form.
So we went slowly but had a ton of great conversations as we crafted the project—and I learned even MORE about the genius of Chad Jensen when he sent me his master CC spreadsheets to adapt for CC: Vietnam. Wow. Over time, we honed the design document, unit spreadsheets, and scenario scope, and I finally put together a very ugly test CC: Vietnam map that we used to maneuver and “fight” our imaginary battles. Here you can see both that original map and Chad’s enormously better version of that map at right, which depicts mountainous jungle terrain that we envisioned as a base map for an “Assault on a US Fire Base” scenario, Marine defenses of a hilltop position, and US assaults (mini-Hamburger Hills) on dug in NVA/PLF forces.
Gene’s playtest map (left) vs. Chad’s playtest map (right). Yeah, I know… 😊
As most of you know, Chad’s design plate was continually busy during those years. There wasn’t a time I can remember when Chad didn’t have a couple games on our P500 list and a few more in his head. Here’s an ad we did back around 2015 that showed just a few of the Family Games that Chad had completed or in the works:
So Chad was busy. And starting around 2014, I got into serious development and testing on the game I’d wanted to do forever, Mr. President. So both of our design time for CC: Vietnam was minimal, but we kept honing the design document and both thought it was coming together and that we’d do it “someday.”
A Time to Weep.
Sadly, we were wrong. Even 5 ½ years later, I still have trouble thinking and talking about that incredibly heart-wrenching period of Chad’s sickness and passing. I lost a good friend, Kai lost the love of her life, and the gaming world lost an absolute rock star designer. So gaming-wise inside GMT, everything Chad-related just stopped while we all grieved his passing.
A Time to Build Up.
Probably a year later, allowing some time to pass and the hard edges of grief to soften a bit so we could get through a phone conversation without crying, Kai and I began to talk about finishing Chad’s unfinished or unpublished designs. And he had a bunch of them. Honestly, I didn’t think at that point that CC: Vietnam would be one of them because, frankly, I didn’t want to design it without Chad (and there was STILL Mr. President dominating my design time). And so we did other games instead—games that either Kai or I had a team in place or recruited to finish. Of all those games we talked about and have worked on, I’m especially happy that John Butterfield volunteered to finish Downfall with Kai. And it won the CSR Game of the Year last year! What a tribute to Chad, and to John, a forever friend to Chad and Kai.
In 2022, Kai and I began to seriously discuss the Combat Commander series and agreed to create an Anniversary Edition of the CC: Europe/CC: Med. games which was packaged as Chad originally intended, in one big box. And we had designers ask us about taking the CC game to other theatres and periods. But no movement for CC: Vietnam. Until there WAS!!!
A Time to Seek.
Two of our newer GMT designers whose work I’m really excited about are Non-Breaking Space (NB) and Stephen Rangazas. NB created Cross Bronx Expressway(nearing heading to the printer now) and Stephen designed The British Way. Both have other designs on P500 now and also on the design table. Well, in the fall of 2023, NB came to our Weekend at the Warehouse and showed a couple games to Jason, Kai, Rachel, Mike Bertucelli, and me. I liked his games, but more importantly, I liked HIM. After the weekend, we were all excited about working with NB—I heard several “he fits with us” comments (and he DOES!)—on various projects. And Stephen’s The British Way and The Guerrilla Generation demonstrated both his design skill and the depth of research that he puts into game design. I was particularly impressed with the way he engages with customers online: he communicates clearly and humbly and is open to feedback and other interpretations while being committed to making the best product that he can.
So, at that warehouse meeting, being really impressed with NB, I mentioned in passing that I’d really love to find a team to get the Combat Commander: Vietnam project moving forward. NB surprised us with “I need to make a phone call.” That call was to Stephen (they often work together in a design partnership). NB has since told me that it was Stephen’s background in Vietnam research that prompted the call. Stephen’s design of Sovereign of Discord, the expansion to our hit COIN game Fire in the Lake, already benefited from his depth of knowledge (and I would note here that your work has to be pretty impressive to get Mark and Volko to sign off on doing an expansion for one of their best-selling games!). After the call, NB told us something along the lines of “We’re interested, but it’s a divergence from the path we are on right now. So we need to take some time to think about it and discuss it in depth before we give you an answer.”
Fast forward to January of 2024. NB contacted me and Jason and let us know that he and Stephen were definitely interested in working on a Combat Commander: Vietnam game! We had an online meeting a week later where they walked us through a slide show of how they intended to move forward with the design, assuming we approved it. Here are a few of the slides from that meeting:
Stephen and NB’s scoping of the Factions that they proposed including in the game.NB and Stephen’s early overview of Faction Deck Force Composition and Timelines
It was a really good meeting. We had a lot of questions, and NB and Stephen answered them with skill, honesty, and transparency and were not shy to share what their research showed. I liked that when they hadn’t figured something out yet, they said so. It was clear to me that they had the chops to research, design, and deliver a new Combat Commander: Vietnam that aligned with Chad’s and my vision for the game but was not limited by it. I left that meeting IMPRESSED. And we gave them the go ahead to push forward into the “create the physical game” stage, which they proposed to have to show us by the Fall 2024 Weekend at the Warehouse.
A Time to Dance.
We didn’t hear much from Stephen and NB from January to September. We just left them alone, knowing that what they were creating was a huge task. Occasionally they’d have a question, but mostly they just worked away on their own, sculpting what we all hoped would become a masterpiece.
Then, just before the Weekend at the Warehouse, NB sent us the image below and told us he’d have the playtest kit ready for the Weekend. We were so excited!
At the Weekend, we were all really happy about where the design was and ready to move forward to getting it ready for P500. I was thinking it might be ready to go on the P500 list in a year. Then NB said, “Please give us a deadline. We work better that way.” So I said, “April 2025.” NB didn’t blink, so that was our target date.
Then, in January, Stephen and NB informed us that they had EIGHT maps (pictured below) they were now testing on and anticipated they’d double that within a month.
They also included a Map of Vietnam with a Scenario and Reference guide for all the planned Battles (below).
And then they COMPLETELY blew me away. They built a campaign system! WHAT??!!??
Campaign Scenario Generator (left) and the CC: V scenario it generated (right)
They then noted that they thought they’d be ready for a MARCH P500 addition instead of April. Looking at the quality and completeness of their work (I’ve shown just a fraction here), I had no problem giving them the March slot. So here we are, with Combat Commander: Vietnam hitting the P500 list with this week’s customer newsletter. I hope you’ll order yours now!
I hope this article gives you all some insight into how Combat Commander: Vietnam has come to exist. What a long journey this has been. I am HUGELY excited about what NB and Stephen have created and how they’ve taken Chad’s system and our vision and combined it with their own research and added so much that we probably wouldn’t ever have thought of. I still can’t believe we’re going to have a Campaign System for CC: Vietnam!!!!!!
I believe (and hope) that the Combat Commander community will be blown away by how cool this game is and by the amount of value they’re going to get in this big box of Combat Commander love. And I know Chad would be SO happy to see this game that we planted the seeds for finally come to fruition. As with everything in the Combat Commander world, every time I play this, I’ll be thinking of Chad. And I’ll always be thankful that NB and Stephen took up this challenge and have honored Chad with the care, attention to detail, and general awesomeness that they’ve created for us to enjoy as we play Combat Commander: Vietnam.
Published: Jun 9, 2025 02:55 pm