The Call of Duty Black Ops 7 beta is now up and running, and the Treyarch‘s newest entry is off to a spectacular start with muscle flexing. While players were expecting a “stacked” beta for pre-orders, it has since been discovered that a very important mode had not been available from the jump-many being immensely disappointed over social media.
So what on earth is the real Black Ops 7 beta deal? An official tweet from Call of Duty assures that pre-ordering will get the player entry at their own discretion into what does look like a very really big build of the beta. There are tons of content to get acquainted with, but then came the fine print-alongside the community revelations-that zombies will not be available until day two of the testing period and then just for a short window.
That one, nobody in the Call of Duty community was happy about! Comments left beneath the announcement tweet read like a digital blackout, with hundreds of players sharing in expressions of disbelief and frustration at zombies being time-gated. @Bliss_Ventus couldn’t hold back: “Make zombies day 1 you bozos”; meanwhile, @TheKorborium couldn’t make sense of “making it a limited time mode in a BETA.”
Such anger is run really deep by the zombies players who feel as if their preferred game mode is always relegated to an afterthought. @SimplyKmplx echoed the thought “can we get one year where zombies players aren’t consistently fucked.” This was repeated in October responses, with players like @arcadllama calling time-limited beta zombies “ABSURD AND TERRIBLE.”
The zombies enablement isn’t the only plague put upon the Black Ops 7 beta rollout. Some users claimed they still haven’t received their beta codes despite pre-ordering and watching the COD Next streams mandates. @wopo1400 said, “haven’t even received my code and I pre ordered the game,” and @Vhinicius0 followed suit saying, “I watched the ENTIRE COD Next stream, which lasted over 4 hours and still missed the beta code drop.”
The map situation also sparked curiosity. @KinjuSurge questioned, “Played six maps at cod next but were only getting four?” for the beta. This discordance between what was broadcasted at promotional activities and what is actually available in the beta has some players questioning the final game’s content.
Meanwhile, the zombie community keeps voicing concerns about limited availability. @HDNLVLY pleaded, “can we please get zombies right at the start of the beta,” while @froaklies directly asked the developers, “Why make zombies limited? Why do you hate us??” The intensity of this reaction implies that Treyarch might have completely miscalculated just how greatly their player base values instant zombies access.
Some tried to give reasons, with @bwanbran saying that “they want people on multiplayer during the open beta period” and “they are doing a lot of tests on Ricochet during the beta.” But even this explanation didn’t satisfy most of the commentors, who considered the move unnecessarily restrictive.
The limited-time zombies beta access is especially off-putting to players. @Justleo64 summed up the popular sentiment, “Why does it start a day later, AND THEN ONLY LAST A LIMITED TIME?!” while @Sorbiee bluntly asked, “Time gating zombies for what.” The strategy appears counterintuitive for a beta period meant for stress-testing servers and bug identification before launch.
Secondly, while the beta goes on, it remains to be seen whether Treyarch might act on feedback from the community and open up access for zombies. Previous Call of Duty betas have had developers shifting based on responses from the community, so a little bit of hope remains for those wanting zombies to be more accessible during this test.
Towards this, Black Ops 7 beta is a mix of excitement and frustration–a catharsis of early hands-on experience with a new Call of Duty title dampened by restricted access to what has become one of the franchise’s most beloved modes. The situation serves as a reminder that beta access management has an outsized effect on community sentiment in the lead-up to a game’s full release.
Whether this is something that Treyarch tries to sort out or not, one thing is for sure: Call of Duty players are very passionate concerning their zombies, and if compensated unfairly, they will be making their voices heard loudly. Who knows, perhaps, the forthcoming launch of Black Ops 7 later this year will provide an answer to whether this controversy stirred up by the beta was just a bumps-in-the-road moment or is actually hinting towards large, underlying issues facing the handling of zombies content in the newest Plants vs. Zombies game available on PlayStation and Xbox.
