Battlefield 6, Black Ops 7 and MW4: Inside the Shooter War of 2025-26
For the first time ever, Battlefield beat Call of Duty. Then Infinity Ward answered with a Korean war story and the series' best reviews in 15 years. How the biggest rivalry in shooters flipped twice in twelve months.
For almost twenty years the fight between Battlefield and Call of Duty had a predictable ending. Battlefield would win the trailers and the hype. Call of Duty would win the sales charts, every single year.
Then came autumn 2025. EA's Battlefield 6 sold more than 7 million copies in three days, became the best-selling game of 2025 in the United States, and outsold that year's Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, the first time a Battlefield had ever done so. Twelve months later, Activision struck back with Modern Warfare 4, a campaign set largely in South Korea and the best-reviewed Call of Duty since 2011.
This is the story of the most dramatic year in the shooter rivalry.
Battlefield's comeback
The context matters. After a rocky few years for the series, EA rebuilt its approach around a new label, Battlefield Studios: DICE in Sweden on multiplayer, Motive and Criterion on the single-player campaign, and Ripple Effect on a battle royale mode. Analysts estimated the budget at over $400 million.
The plan was simple: go back to what fans loved about Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 and Bad Company 2. Modern weapons, big maps, destructible buildings and squads. The setting is 2027-2028, with a fractured NATO fighting a private military company called Pax Armata.
Two open betas in August 2025 were a hint of what was coming: the first peaked at more than 500,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. The game launched on October 10, 2025 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, and the free battle royale Battlefield RedSec followed on October 28 with Season 1.
Reviews were solid rather than spectacular, 82 to 84 on Metacritic depending on platform, with praise for multiplayer and much weaker notes for the campaign. But the sales numbers told the real story. It also won Best Audio Design at The Game Awards 2025.
Call of Duty's worst year
Activision's answer was Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, released on November 14, 2025 by Treyarch and Raven Software. It was set in June 2035, offered a campaign playable by up to four players in co-op, and was the final Call of Duty released for PS4 and Xbox One.
It did not go well. Black Ops 7 scored 65 to 66 on Metacritic, and only 36% of critics on OpenCritic recommended it. Players review-bombed it on Metacritic, pushing the user score as low as 1.5, the lowest ever for a Call of Duty there. Complaints ranged from the co-op campaign's performance and the lack of a pause button in solo play to a boss fight compared to the internet meme Skibidi Toilet. There were also stricter requirements on PC, where TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot had to be enabled as an anti-cheat measure. The use of generative AI for some in-game art, including calling cards players said resembled Studio Ghibli's style, drew more criticism.
The sales data was stark:
- In Europe, opening-week sales were more than 50% lower than Black Ops 6, and 63% lower than Battlefield 6
- On Steam, the launch weekend peaked above 100,000 concurrent players, against about 315,000 for Black Ops 6
- In the US, it finished fifth for 2025, Call of Duty's lowest year-end ranking since World at War in 2008
The Korean counter-attack
Activision revealed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 in May 2026, and it was clear from the first trailer that Infinity Ward had changed course. No last-generation consoles. A launch on Nintendo Switch 2, built with help from Digital Legends, alongside PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. And a campaign set during a full-scale North Korean invasion of South Korea, with later missions in New York, Paris and Mumbai.
The story follows Private Park, a young South Korean soldier on collapsing front lines, while Captain Price, now an outlaw, hunts for revenge and becomes tangled in a fight over a powerful weapon. Multiplayer launched with 12 core maps, a modular training area called Kill Block with over 500 configurations, and a new version of the extraction mode DMZ. The standard edition costs $69.99.
When reviews landed in late October, they were the warmest for the series in years. Modern Warfare 4 sits at 84 on Metacritic, 19 points higher than Black Ops 7 and the best Call of Duty score since Modern Warfare 3 in 2011. Critics singled out the campaign's pacing and Korean setting; GameSpot gave it 8/10. On Steam, user reviews peaked at 94% positive during the campaign early access before settling around 80%.
The scores, side by side
Metacritic scores for each recent Call of Duty, as tracked when MW4 launched:
- Modern Warfare (2019): 80
- Black Ops Cold War (2020): 76
- Vanguard (2021): 73
- Modern Warfare II (2022): 75
- Modern Warfare III (2023): 56
- Black Ops 6 (2024): 82
- Black Ops 7 (2025): 65
- Modern Warfare 4 (2026): 84
Where Battlefield is now
Battlefield 6 has kept a steady seasonal rhythm: Season 2 in February 2026, Season 3 in May and Season 4 in July, which brought back the classic map Wake Island for its tenth official appearance in the franchise. Season 5 is due this autumn, now going head to head with MW4. EA's anti-cheat system, Javelin, reported blocking more than 300,000 cheating attempts by August 2025, before the game had even launched.
There is a sad note too. Battlefield 6 was the last game shaped by Vince Zampella, the co-creator of Call of Duty who later led Battlefield at EA. He died in December 2025.
Why it matters
Competition worked. A genuinely threatening Battlefield forced Activision to rethink how it builds Call of Duty, and the result was its most confident game in years. Players on both sides have better shooters to choose from than they did two years ago.
WGC's take: the lesson of 2025-26 is that shooter fans reward focus. Battlefield 6 won by giving people the classic Battlefield they had asked for. Black Ops 7 lost by trying to do everything at once. Modern Warfare 4 won back trust with a strong, grounded story and a setting that felt fresh, especially for Korean players who rarely see their country at the centre of a blockbuster.
By the numbers
- 7 million: Battlefield 6 sales in three days
- $400 million+: estimated Battlefield 6 budget
- 1.5: Black Ops 7's lowest Metacritic user score
- 63%: how much lower Black Ops 7's European opening week was than Battlefield 6's
- 84: Modern Warfare 4's Metacritic score, the series' best since 2011
- 12: core multiplayer maps in MW4 at launch
What to play next
If you want big-team chaos and vehicles, Battlefield 6 is still the pick, and RedSec is free to try. If you want a campaign, play Modern Warfare 4: it is the best Call of Duty story in years and the Korean setting gives it a real identity. For the wider picture of the year's releases, see our 2026 AAA year so far.