Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 feels set to be an entirely different beast to previous releases, with early trailers revealing a game of surreal sights and psychological warfare. According to Miles Leslie, Associate Creative Director at Treyarch, the team wanted to tell a more personal, relatable story this time around, using a chemical weapon as a catalyst for a deeper exploration of Black Ops‘ heroes.
‘With this game, what we really wanted to tap into is something that’s really human,’ Leslie tells ScreenHub. ‘We wanted to really ground the game in something everyone has, which is fears and regrets, and past decisions – and I think humans just constantly dwell on that.’
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 interview – quick links
Exploring the surreal in Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
In the main campaign of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, the soldiers of elite unit Specter One investigate the growing threat of a chemical weapon that can alter the mind dramatically and create shared hallucinations inspired by individual fears.
To players, it essentially transforms the game into a more fantastical playground, where soldiers must occasionally deal with threats like giant knives plummeting into the earth, or cities bending overhead. Leslie says a significant inspiration was Scarecrow’s fear toxin in the Batman stories, where characters must face and conquer their fears in order to survive.
‘It’s a very human subject and through that construct [the surreal], it’s really about David Mason and his squad, and how they deal with those fears,’ Leslie says. ‘It was really exciting [for the team] because then, well, how do those fears manifest?…It was really exciting coming up with those moments.’
‘For Black Ops, we’ve always really explored those elements that are real but not real…It just felt right on where we wanted to go.’
For Leslie, it also made the process of developing the game more exciting. After two decades working on the Call of Duty franchise, he tells ScreenHub it was the wilder, more creative ideas that inspired him to keep creating, as well as working alongside a robust team.
‘I know it’s cliche, but it’s the people [who keep me excited],’ Leslie says.
‘The people really do bring so much to the game and the story that keeps it exciting. But on top of that, we get to go to somewhere new…It’s really exciting to start fresh, and being experimental too.’
Recasting David Mason and harnessing traditional acting methods
To tell this layered story with the nuance required, the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 development team leaned heavily on the talent of traditionally-trained actors. Notably, while there are some returning faces from other Black Ops games, the role of David Mason was recast, with Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes, This Is Us) taking the reigns.
According to Leslie, his casting was in service of the game’s more ‘human’ plot, and the desire to explore human psychology, fears and desire, with the gravity required.
‘When we started, and when we knew we were going to go back to David, because the story really revolved around him, we actually went out and [said] “We need someone who can get the nuance, that can deliver the storytelling that we want, but also the leadership.” We went through a bunch of casting, and we landed on Milo – and thank goodness his team was open to it,’ Leslie says.
‘I have vivid memories of the first day we met with him – not only him, the rest of the squad…It was so amazing, it was like they’d all been a squad already…Milo was the leader, but behind his eyes, there was a nuance, and there was the fear and the regret, and we knew he was going to deliver on what we needed David to deliver.’
Leslie and the team were particularly impressed by the chemistry of the team, from the snappy sarcasm of Frankie Adams as Leilani ’50/50′ Tupuola, to the serious nature of John Eric Bentley as Eric Samuels and the humour of Michael Rooker as Mike Harper.
As Leslie describes, it’s this real-world chemistry that elevates the action of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and shines through in its exploration of overcoming fear and impossible odds.
‘It just felt like they’d always been together, and that’s when we knew it would work,’ Leslie says.
Setting the stakes with real, relatable characters
As Leslie explains, it’s in these characters that Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 players are able to understand and engage deeply with the game, and grasp its stakes. While the campaign leans into the fantastical (as other modes like Zombies do), it was important for the team that the story remained grounded by the characters, and by a relatable exploration of personal fear and regret.
‘[Exploring the surreal] allows us to tell a story [where] we can go into a fear, and then come back out to reality, and it does have weight and consequences because the human is impacted by it,’ Leslie says. ‘The question is, is it real or not? But it’s more about how does it affect [the character] now, to keep us moving forward?’
While Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 will explore more fantastical realms, with plenty of surreal imagery, the team wanted to emphasise the relationship between the psychological and the physical, to better explore how warfare can impact the human mind.
For example, the mission of floating knives, where players must chart a battlefield threatened by giant, overhanging weapons, was directly inspired by the events of Black Ops 2. While strange in nature, it’s grounded in the feelings and events of the past, and how they’ve warped David Mason’s mind.
‘Part of that mission is about facing the fear of the past with Raul Menendez [a key villain in Black Ops]. Menendez has his iconic machete…It was a really cool moment to bring that fear manifestation in,’ Leslie explains.
According to Leslie, the team had a ‘lot of fun’ figuring out when to implement these moments to advance the story, focusing on impactful symbolism in stranger moments, wielded in a way where players and characters can learn something new.
For those players who’ve bounced off Call of Duty in the past, it’s a novel storytelling mechanic that adds layers to the Black Ops 7 campaign. As a more nuanced character study, there’s certainly more intrigue here.
We’ll have our full thoughts on Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 published in future, so stay tuned.
