Entertainment Swindon

One franchise within the gaming world has stood the test of time, stayed a constant for decades in the gaming war with an overwhelming dominance, ‘Call of Duty’. That is until now!

With other first person shooting games now rivalling Call of Duty, particularly two rival games with a mission to take its crown, Call of Duty which first entered the gaming world in 2003, publisher Activision became the best selling game in 13 of the 16years since 2009 through to 2024, with only Hogwarts Legacy, Grand Theft Auto V and Red Redemption II knocking the franchise off its perch.

As of 2023, the Call of Duty franchise has sold over 500million copies globally, putting it behind only two other games, Tetris and Mario (both created in the 1980s), making it one of the best selling gaming franchises of all time.

For many fans of Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, released back in November 2025 was a big disappointment. Rolling Stone Magazine called it “the largest and messiest Call of Duty ever.”

Black Ops 7 was also a first for Call of Duty to make the campaign mode entirely online, which needed a good steady internet connection, which even these days can’t always be relied upon. There was also no traditional mid-mission checkpoints, which meant if you lost power or internet connection, you would have to start back at the beginning of the level. Black Ops 6 was considered one of the best Call of Duty entries in recent years, so with all the mistakes made by the creators of Black Ops 7, players were right to be hugely disappointed. So when figures showed Black Ops 7 was down double digit percentage compared to Black Ops 6, there was no surprise.

If it wasn’t bad enough that the creators of Black Ops 7 seemed to have committed franchise suicide, its two main rivals Battlefield 6 from Electronic Arts and ARC Raiders from Embark Studios snapped at Call of Duty’s combat boots with two great games. Fortnite’s collaboratin with The Simpsons also hit Call of Duty’s younger gamers, and also pulled many older CoD gamers away.

To finish on a positive note, Call of Duty may have ended 2025 in the trenches, but its too big a beast to strong to die away and has millions of loyal fans, so, if CoD comes back with a strong First Person Shooting Game that the fans expect and deserve, then CoD will pull itself out of the trenches and reclaim its throne!