Let’s be honest, the buzz around a new Black Ops story is always huge. Fans want those wild plot twists and mind games the series is known for, but lately, it feels like the single-player side is getting tangled up with multiplayer in ways that don’t really help. You sit down ready for a gripping spy thriller, but before you know it, you’re bumping into systems and menus clearly built for online play. And when an CoD BO7 Boosting style of progression starts creeping into the campaign, it’s hard not to feel like the solo experience is taking a back seat. 

The first thing that hits you is the always-online requirement. You’ve got the time blocked out, you’re in the mood, and then a dodgy internet moment boots you straight back to the menu. For a single-player mode, that’s just baffling. It’s not only annoying—it breaks the flow completely. Instead of a game you own and can play whenever, it feels like you’re borrowing access from a server that might pull the plug at any second. That constant dependency makes the campaign feel fragile, like it’s never fully yours. 

Then there’s the size of the install. You want to play an eight-hour story, but you’re stuck downloading a massive bundle of multiplayer maps, operators, and modes you might never touch. The menus don’t make it any better. You’re often wading through battle pass prompts or store offers just to tweak your campaign settings. Even basic stuff, like changing difficulty or checking objectives, can get buried under layers of multiplayer-focused UI. It’s clunky, and it’s a constant reminder that the campaign isn’t the main attraction here. 

Where it really stings is in the mission design. Those tight, scripted set-pieces from earlier games? They’re mostly gone. In their place are “open combat” missions that feel more like big multiplayer maps with bots running around. You get a list of objectives, pick your loadout, and wander a wide space ticking them off. Sure, freedom sounds nice, but here it just drains the tension. The pacing feels off, and the story moments lose their punch. It’s like the game is teaching you multiplayer habits instead of delivering a crafted single-player journey. 

For players who fell in love with Call of Duty for its globe-trotting, cinematic campaigns, this shift is tough to swallow. The single-player mode now feels like a side dish to the multiplayer feast, shaped more by service-driven design than pure storytelling. If the series is going to keep its campaign fans happy, it needs to bring back that focus, that sense of a complete, standalone adventure. Until then, diving into the latest entry feels less like stepping into a spy thriller and more like prepping for the online grind—something cheap CoD BO7 Boosting players might appreciate, but not what campaign loyalists signed up for.