Call of Duty under Attack

Key insights

7 takeaways

01
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched with 100,000 peak concurrent players on Steam, significantly underperforming compared to Black Ops 6 (300,000) and Modern Warfare 3 (190,000).
02
Competing shooters Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders achieved strong launch figures, peaking at 747,000 and 482,000 concurrent Steam users respectively.
03
Arc Raiders shows low player crossover with Call of Duty, with only 11% on PS5 and 13% on Xbox, while 5 million Call of Duty console players were drawn from Fortnite last weekend.
04
Epic Games and Unity have formed a partnership to allow Unity games to publish to Fortnite and integrate Unity’s commerce platform into Unreal Engine.
05
EA will forgo a new F1 game in 2026, opting instead for a paid DLC expansion for the current title, with a full release scheduled for 2027.
06
Asus expects its ROG Ally X handheld range to generate between $96 million and $160 million in the current fiscal quarter, with future quarterly projections reaching up to $160 million.
07
The Game Awards 2025 finalists include Clair Oscur: Expedition 33, Death Stranding 2, Donkey Kong Bananza, Hades 2, Hollow Knight: Silksong, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.

Summary

The video game shooter genre is currently experiencing a significant period of volatility, characterized by intense competition and shifting player engagement. The primary thesis is that the latest installment of the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 7, is facing substantial market pressure from rival titles, resulting in record-low launch figures on Steam and a 61% decline in physical sales in the UK compared to its predecessor. This competitive landscape has disrupted traditional player retention patterns, with titles like Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders successfully capturing segments of the core shooter audience.

Data provided by Ampere Analysis highlights the extent of this market fragmentation. Battlefield 6, which achieved 747,000 concurrent Steam users at launch, drew approximately one-quarter of its PlayStation and Xbox player base from recent Call of Duty users. Meanwhile, Arc Raiders, which peaked at 482,000 concurrent Steam users, has appealed to a more transient audience, showing significant overlap with titles like Helldivers 2, Skate, and Borderlands 4. Helldivers 2 has emerged as a notable casualty of this shift, experiencing a 45% drop in user numbers during October as players migrated toward newer releases.

The analysis suggests that while Call of Duty retains strong brand recognition, it is struggling with negative fan sentiment regarding specific design choices and technical execution. The current shooter market demonstrates a high degree of player mobility, with millions of users actively switching between major franchises. This trend underscores a broader industry shift where established live-service titles must continuously compete for the attention of a highly fluid player base, setting the stage for further competition as upcoming titles like Marathon and new entries in the Halo franchise enter the market.