Directly following up 2024’s Black Ops 6, Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has been pulling out all the nostalgic stops by bringing back characters, maps, and iconic moments from previous entries in the sci-fi shooter series. While many of these additions, including the return of beloved maps like Hijacked and Raid, generated plenty of hype, others are much less exciting.
It’s no secret that Call of Duty as a whole has become more than a little formulaic at this point, with just as many fans clamoring for the return of their favorite content as critics wishing for a breath of fresh air from the series. Even if each iteration of the annual franchise has plenty of expectations around it, one pre-launch announcement before Black Ops 7 was even released was far from a surprise.
Black Ops 7’s Nuketown Is All Too Expected At This Point
After its first debut over 15 years ago, Nuketown has appeared in every iteration of Call of Duty: Black Ops since its inception, with the re-release of Nuketown 2025 in Black Ops 7 being the latest unsurprising addition in a long line of remakes. To make things even worse, Nuketown is being released as the first post-launch update for Black Ops 7, taking the slot of what could have been a brand-new map or another fan-favorite choice from the past.
While the choice of bringing back the Nuketown 2025 variation specifically is easy to appreciate given the year of Black Ops 7‘s release, it’s still hard to get excited after seeing Nuketown’s inclusion so often. It’s easy to see why the Nuketown map was so popular, given how chaotic yet well-implemented it was in its original appearances, but the core gameplay formula of the franchise has changed dramatically since then.
Even aside from the new Gadgets, Scorestreaks, and other tools available to players, many new game modes fail to utilize the map to its fullest, while forcing fans into playing the map through non-voting playlists and events.
Nuketown’s Removal Could Make Space For Other Creative Maps
While Nuketown in Black Ops 6 faced plenty of criticism thanks to the omnimovement system making it feel even smaller than ever while encouraging rushing spawns, it also offered the perfect solution for Nuketown fatigue.
Even if it didn’t achieve the same fame as its predecessor, Warhead from Black Ops 6 was a creative way to remix the map, letting players enjoy a similar level of chaos and design in an entirely new map layout. While it’s hardly recognizable from the original aside from a few design choices, it goes to show that Call of Duty doesn’t need to be restricted by its previous maps alone.
Even a year after release, Warhead is still consistently one of the top-rated Black Ops 6 multiplayer maps.
Having already received re-releases of several maps from the past, there is plenty of room for Black Ops 7 to innovate with entirely new offerings that share similar design elements as Nuketown’s three corridor design, while better adapting itself to each iteration’s movement abilities. Even Black Ops 4‘s original battle royale Blackout and its successor Call of Duty Warzone have experimented with larger variations of Nuketown that worked surprisingly well, with the map design having plenty of room for even more expansions in the future.
It’s hard to blame Treyarch for not switching things up too heavily, given how much demand there is for Nuketown’s continuous return, but it might be a sign of one of the franchise’s biggest ongoing problems. With each entry in the Black Ops franchise mixing things up in some new fashion each time, it’s only appropriate that the maps be able to match this.
Nuketown’s future installments have the potential to be even better if they simply adapt themselves with each generation. While there might be little hope of seeing any drastic changes to the classic Nuketown formula in the multiplayer mode of the Black Ops series, there is still one place the design can shine.
Nuketown Could Still Have Room For Future Zombies Expansions
Even if the Black Ops series should close the door on relying on nostalgic maps like Nuketown that don’t quite fit their modern game design, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any room in the series. While Nuketown Zombies might not have been as replayable as larger-scale maps that took full advantage of BO2‘s new mechanics, it was still a great change of pace with creative gimmicks to help it stand out.
Admittedly, part of the charm of the original Nuketown Zombies was how it tied in with the overarching story at the time and occurred simultaneously with the events of the previous Black Ops Zombies‘ Moon map. Even so, it still has plenty of potential for a modern iteration.
The Zombies mode is one of Black Ops 7‘s strongest offerings, thanks to the massively increased size, higher level of detail, and even new mechanics like a brand new Wonder Vehicle to get around in. With all this fresh material in play, it’s not hard to see Nuketown Zombies thriving once more as a future DLC map.
Even if Nuketown Zombies doesn’t make it into Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, hopefully the next entry can expand on its post-apocalyptic concept with the level of attention it deserves.
- Released
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November 14, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
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Treyarch, Raven Software
- Engine
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IW Engine
