Call of Duty at its most unpopular levels ahead of Black Ops 7 reveal

The “gold standard” of first-person shooter games Call of Duty is reportedly struggling to keep players in-game ahead of the global reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, scheduled for August 19 at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live event.

After decades of counting millions of user numbers, recent figures suggest the franchise is losing a chunk of its audience. According to data from SteamCharts dated July 17, just 27,900 users were playing Call of Duty on Steam, with a 24-hour peak of 66,798 players.

The figure is a whopping 86% decrease from its all-time peak, recorded at 488,897.

Are FPS gamers still spending time on COD?  

In 2020, several gaming publications reported that players spent over 25 billion hours in the franchise, roughly 2.85 million years of gameplay. The claim recently went viral again on social media, but the gaming community has since questioned its accuracy.

Gamers have logged more than 25 billion hours, equivalent to 2.85 million years, playing Call of Duty—surpassing the entire timeline of human history. pic.twitter.com/erFUGBZRP1

— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) July 15, 2025

“How would they have gotten that number if the Xbox isn’t connected to the Internet?” one Reddit user asked, asking about how statistics like offline play could be reliably tracked. 

“I actually did a little bit more digging and found an even older article from 9 years ago claiming the same figures for hours. But again, all of these numbers are still questionable without any proper evidence. These numbers could have very well been pulled out of their ass,” another Redditor remarked.

The latest IP release from Activision, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, was added to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass to purportedly boost the subscription platform. Yet, according to data from analytics firm Ampere shared with The Game Business, Black Ops 6 generated just a 2% increase in Game Pass subscriptions post-launch.

In November 2024, shortly after the game’s debut, player numbers went up to 33.7 million from 2023’s 20.7 million. Gamers believed part of the surge was a result of dissatisfaction with 2023’s Modern Warfare 3, bashed for reusing content and a short, forgettable campaign experience, dubbed as a “Modern Warfare 2 DLC.”

By March 2025, Ampere found that the total player count had declined to 20.6 million. The same month in 2024 had seen 20.8 million players, and March 2023 reported 22.4 million.

Between July 10 and July 17, 2025, player numbers fluctuated between approximately 25,000 and 66,000 active users at peak hours. These numbers fall significantly short of the franchise’s highs and show how much loyalists have become somewhat apathetic to the game.

Community frustrated over hacking, loot, and unnecessary promos

The frustration among the active community members on Activision’s content and gameplay updates has only gone up since Microsoft acquired the game publisher in 2022. 

“This game is so dogshit. Movement is bad. Audio is bad. Meta is bad. Anticheat is bad. Bundles are bad. Lmaoooo,” wrote one disgruntled gamer on X.

Complaints from the community include poor anti-cheat implementation, unbalanced gameplay mechanics, and a lack of meaningful content updates. Not many players have had positive things to say about COD, and even the season 4 Beavis and Butthead event, was profoundly lambasted.

“Can’t wait to NOT play this! Seriously if you showed this screenshot to me back on mw2019 (not that long ago) I would’ve thought you were on crack. But still every cod influencer is going to buy it up and keep degrading the standard,” complained one X user.

Activeplayer estimates show that Call of Duty: Warzone, the free-to-play battle royale spinoff, still attracts between 1 to 3 million daily active users, with monthly figures consolidating around 30 to 50 million.

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