Few video game franchises survived the industry's drive towards annualization. The cost – both creatively and financially – was too great a burden for many publishers to bear. But not Activision, who has been dutifully rewarded for deploying Call of Duty installments every fall for two decades. It's easy to be cynical when it comes to Call of Duty, but the reigning FPS king is among the best-selling games on PlayStation and Xbox every year for a reason. The games are fun, frenetic, and consistent – three exceptionally valuable qualities in a genre increasingly stranded in live-service ambiguity.
What's always kept me invested is the variety. Three lead development houses – Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games – working with a dozen support studios to deliver a different concept each year, with each team given three years to innovate before catching the spotlight. New storylines and settings, new maps and weapons; sub-franchises with their own style and substance. Black Ops 7 is the latest to buck this trend, with Activision once again pursuing back-to-back releases.
