Treyarch announced recently it will be remastering even more Black Ops 2 maps than before. Activision’s CoD outputs have often regurgitated formulas for years, but it seems they team is upping the ante with this one.
According to Charlie Intel, Black Ops 7 will reportedly feature more Black Ops 2 remastered maps, including those that weren’t remastered for any of the previous Black Ops titles. This came from a Treyarch developer’s tease during a Q&A segment, which quite clearly indicated “new” BO2 maps are on their way to BO7.
The reason behind this, though not stated, is also pretty clear: Black Ops 7 needs to sell well, especially because of that one thing called Battlefield 6 coming out at just about the same time.
Instead of thinking out of the box and trying to understand what made those old map designs work, filtering that through modern innovations, and creating new and improved inspired levels, Activision is throwing the nostalgia bait into the wild and hoping people will bite. As one reply under the Charlie Intel tweet said, “The level of desperation is strong with this one,” and I wholeheartedly agree.
The majority of upcoming CoD maps are admittedly new, both in Zombies and MP, while these remakes are part of the CoD tradition by now, which is not a bad thing per se. As per official BO7 numbers, the remake to original ratio is good, with 15 new maps in total and three remakes, though the remakes are going to keep coming (as are the new maps, so that’s good).
But still, just look at the game’s name—Black Ops Seven. Treyarch has been making nothing but Black Ops since the first one came out… 15 years ago! And it continues to remake maps from a 2012 title, trying to recreate its success instead of using it as a foundation for something greater.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a new headline to better identify this article as an opinion column. We have also added additional context regarding how many new maps will be in BO7.
Published: Sep 6, 2025 12:03 pm