The war for the best first person shooter of 2025 has fully kicked off after the recent release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 but it seems for the first time in a long span of time, Activision’s juggernaut franchise is actually faltering which is apparent when comparing the day one player counts of the game with it’s arch rival Battlefield 6. And while Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has been receiving complaints directed at several aspects of the shooter especially at it’s single player campaign which doesn’t allow you to even pause and it’s use of Generative AI assets, it’s the opening numbers in Steam (according to SteamDB) that’s a bit worrying for the game, at this point at least.
To put things in perspective, the peak player counts for Battlefield 6 was a colossal 747,440 players, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s 24-hour launch peak was at a 86,652 players which is shockingly disappointing in more ways than one. Those numbers seem even more disheartening when compared with the recently released ARC Raiders which has garnered a huge 264,673 player count so far. And to make matters seem even worse for the Call of Duty series, it’s rival Battlefield 6 is still hitting 200-250K on a regular basis with ARC Raiders growing stronger as well and hitting over 200K numbers.
Of course this current weekend may give quite a bit of needed boost to Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 but it remains to be seen just by how much and how it impacts the overall player counts. As one of the biggest franchises in the world and over a decade of overwhelming dominance in terms of total sales, it seems the Call of Duty franchise is having real difficulty finding it’s footing this year.
However, it’s unknown as of right now how the game’s reduced player count can impact it’s overall sales which is still expected to remain exceptionally high across all platforms.
