Call of Obligation: Black Ops 7 launched final month to grow to be the best-selling recreation of November in the U.S. by greenback gross sales. It is each an enormous gross sales feat and a standard Call of Obligation W, as the franchise has topped the charts in its launch month yearly for 18 straight years. Nonetheless, it appears like its rival Battlefield 6 will reign at the prime of the U.S. gross sales charts at 12 months’s finish.
This comes from Circana’s month-to-month report, which has Black Ops 7 debuting as the best-selling recreation of November and the seventh best-selling recreation of the year-to-date, behind Battlefield 6 at No.1, NBA 2K26 at No.2, Monster Hunter Wilds at No.3, Borderlands 4 at No.4, EA Sports activities School Soccer 26 at No.5, and Madden NFL 26 at No.6.
All of these video games have a couple of extra months on the market on Call of Obligation, nevertheless it’s nonetheless so much of floor to make up in a single month, and Call of Obligation’s at a bit of a drawback. The sport launched into Game Move, which means its precise greenback gross sales on Xbox consoles are a lot decrease than that of its rivals as folks use the subscription service to entry it as a substitute, and there isn’t any good latest knowledge on how Call of Obligation’s presence on the service impacts subscriptions.
It’s price noting, although, that Black Ops 7 does not appear to be doing as effectively as Black Ops 6, a indisputable fact that’s mirrored in every part from the crucial evaluation scores to fan response to European gross sales figures to Activision’s personal admissions. Circana studies that the Call of Obligation franchise noticed a double-digit greenback gross sales decline in contrast to November 2024, and Circana senior director Mat Piscatella tells me that November full recreation greenback gross sales of Call of Obligation: Black Ops 7 completed beneath these of Call of Obligation: Black Ops 6 final November, with Call of Obligation: Black Ops 6 launching in the October 2024 monitoring interval.
It’s Piscatella’s projection that Battlefield 6 is “extraordinarily probably” to end as the best-selling recreation of 2025 in the U.S. This could not be the solely time Call of Obligation did not prime the annual charts in latest reminiscence. In 2023, Hogwarts Legacy defeated Trendy Warfare 3, and that was with Trendy Warfare 3 not launching into Game Move. Nonetheless, Black Ops 6 nonetheless dominated in 2024, and prior to that solely Rockstar’s GTA 5 and Crimson Useless Redemption 2 had been ready to dethrone Call of Obligation going all the method again to 2008’s Rockband.
Given all that, it is maybe unsurprising that Activision is contemplating important modifications to the way it plans and releases its Call of Obligation franchises 12 months after 12 months. Then once more, whereas Battlefield 6 had an unimaginable launch, it not too long ago launched an replace that broke the recreation in fairly important methods throughout PC and consoles.
It was a bizarre November for all, I assume. Game gross sales in common had an incredibly weak November in the U.S., as we coated in our bigger roundup of Circana’s numbers. You’ll be able to see what is going on on and why gaming {hardware} and bodily software program simply had the worst November since 1995 proper right here.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Acquired a narrative tip? Ship it to rvalentine@ign.com.