At the very least, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has given me plenty to laugh about. How could it not? This year's storyline is accessed strictly through a "co-op campaign" listing on the main menu, an experience designed to be shared (though you can suffer it solo, if you must). Haphazardly tied together cutscenes and narrative beats flip jarringly between sudden reveals, badly done rehashes of classic Black Ops moments, and a deluge of hallucinatory dream sequence levels that deliver the most absurd mission objectives of any CoD to date. But with a friend there are very non-sensible chuckles to be had, even if it ultimately leaves me sour.
That's not to say Call of Duty campaigns haven't been deeply silly for years. The extreme conspiracy theories of Call of Duty: Black Ops in particular has always been part of its charm. But that tone has always been because it has remained at least partially grounded – the straight-faced over-the-top bombast part of the point. In Black Ops 7, it just becomes ropey.
