The Call of Duty franchise, known for its first-person shooters, is experiencing difficulties in retaining players as its active audience diminishes. This coincides with the upcoming global announcement of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, scheduled for August 19 during the Opening Night Live event at Gamescom.
Decline of Call of Duty Players
According to data from SteamCharts, as of July 17, the active player count for Call of Duty on Steam was just 27,900, with a peak of 66,798, marking an 86% decline from an all-time high of 488,897.
Debate on Game Time in Call of Duty
In 2020, several gaming publications reported that players logged over 25 billion hours in the franchise, equating to 2.85 million years of gameplay. However, the gaming community has raised questions about the accuracy of these figures, asking how offline play statistics could be reported. A Reddit user remarked: "How would they have gotten that number if the Xbox isn’t connected to the Internet?".
Community Frustration with Call of Duty
Since Microsoft acquired Activision in 2022, complaints from players have increased. Key concerns include poor anti-cheat implementation, unbalanced gameplay mechanics, and a lack of meaningful content updates. One disgruntled gamer on X commented: "This game is so dogshit. Movement is bad. Audio is bad. Meta is bad. Anticheat is bad. Bundles are bad."
The decline in player numbers for Call of Duty highlights ongoing issues in gameplay mechanics and content, causing frustration among the fan community. The reveal of Black Ops 7 is anticipated to provide a new boost for the franchise, but the current state requires developers' attention.
