[STEAM] Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Suffers 'Terrible' Launch in Europe, With 63% Fewer Copies Sold Than Battlefield 6 — but There's Important Context to Consider

[Steam 0]

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The performance of

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is starting to come into focus, with sales data suggesting it’s struggling not just against rival shooter

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, but also last year’s

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.

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reported that ****** Ops 7’s European launch saw opening week sales down 63% versus the blockbuster Battlefield 6 during the equivalent launch periods for each shooter. ****** Ops 7 is also down by more than 50% versus ****** Ops 6, The Game Business said.

There is an important context that must be considered when discussing ****** Ops 7 sales. For example, there are ****** Ops 7 sales made across various online stores that make it hard to take data from one store only, such as Steam, and use it to make a call on a game's success either way (Call of Duty releases on

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, for example).

And of course ****** Ops 7, like all

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games, launched day one on Game Pass. Downloads made via subscription services are not tracked here, and

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has yet to announce any significant boost to Game Pass as a result of ****** Ops 7’s launch. For all we know, ****** Ops 7 hit its targets in terms of Game Pass subscriptions. And what even is success for Call of Duty these days in the context of Game Pass?

Meanwhile, much is made of Steam concurrents, where ****** Ops 7’s launch appears to have fallen flat compared to ****** Ops 6’s. Last year, ****** Ops 6’s launch propelled the Call of Duty app on Steam to a peak player count of 315,000 on Steam. ****** Ops 7 boosted the Call of Duty app to just above 100,000 concurrents. But Steam, too, does not paint the full picture of a game's playerbase, given neither

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nor Sony make player numbers public.

Of course, ****** Ops 7 has had a big challenger this year from Battlefield 6, and it does indeed look like the tide has turned, at least at launch. Battlefield 6 secured the biggest opening ever in the Battlefield franchise, selling over 7 million copies in just three days.

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— or Activision Blizzard — has yet to announce a sales number for ****** Ops 7, nor has it announced a player number or even vague engagement stats, which is more surprising. Last week, Activision released a statement thanking players for their “great response” to the game, which was presumably more about

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and Zombies than it was the

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.

Thank you to our community and developers. This is just the start

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— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty)

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Adding to the brutal competition is the breakout hit that is

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, which is doing fantastically well, too. Embark Studios’ extraction shooter has sold over 4 million copies worldwide and had a peak of over 700,000 concurrent players across all platforms since its launch in late October 2025. Arc Raiders Steam concurrents are actually growing, suggesting sales are continuing at a steady pace.

All in all, ****** Ops 7 had a “terrible” launch,

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. Oh, and that down more than 50% figure on ****** Ops 6 is in fact down more than 60%. Anecdotally, there’s certainly a feeling among some Call of Duty players that Battlefield 6 and then Arc Raiders stole ****** Ops 7’s thunder. Getting in ahead of ****** Ops 7 was crucial for Battlefield 6, and there are many Call of Duty fans who jumped ship and then skipped ****** Ops 7 as a result. But it must be remembered that Call of Duty remains a gaming behemoth, regularly tops player number charts, and it’s come through sales disappointments (Vanguard and Infinite Warfare say hi) before. All eyes are on U.S. sales data for November, where we'll hopefully get more evidence of ****** Ops 7's sales performance domestically.

Thoughts now turn to 2026’s Call of Duty. It seems unlikely that

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and Activision will give the annualized franchise a year off, so will we see another Modern Warfare game? A return to World War 2? Or something completely different?

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, things aren’t going to get any easier for Activision.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on

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at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at *****@*****.tld.

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