Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s Beta Is Off to a Slow Start

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta appears to be off to a slow start, as its first day peaks at just under 75,000 concurrent players on Steam. The beta is still in its early access stage, as only those who have pre-ordered a copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, or received a code through a promotion, are able to play before October 5. But, with that being said, even when the beta is open to players worldwide, it’s going to have to go some to beat Battlefield 6‘s beta numbers.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 isn’t set to officially release until November 14, when it will then be available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. But before fans pull the trigger on buying the next entry in the franchise, Activision is giving players the chance to go hands-on in a nearly week-long beta test. Early access kicked off on October 2 and can be accessed by obtaining a code via pre-ordering, Twitch Drops, or one of the many other promotions available. Those who don’t have a code or don’t want to pre-order just yet will need to wait until October 5, which is when the Black Ops 7 open beta officially begins.

Black Ops 7's Beta Peaks at Less Than 80,000 Players on Steam

After another successful COD Next event on September 30, it appeared as though hype for the next Call of Duty game was finally starting to build, but it doesn’t appear to have done enough to get fans into the Black Ops 7 beta on day one. As spotted by Insider Gaming, the concurrent player count for Call of Duty only peaked at just under 75,000 on Steam yesterday, which is only about 40,000 more players than its daily average. While there’s no way to know how many players jumped in on PlayStation and Xbox, 75,000 is a long way off from Battlefield 6‘s 521,000 concurrent players earlier this year for its open beta.

It is worth noting that there are two major factors that are going to have an impact on this statistic. The first is that the beta is currently only available to those who have pre-ordered Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 or obtained a code through other means. Then there’s the fact that most people work Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, which often results in big player count spikes on weekends. As the beta is set to end on October 8, there’s a chance that the game’s player count may rise even further over the next few days.

While numbers still have the chance to pick up over the weekend, it seems unlikely that the Black Ops 7 beta will reach the same heights that Battlefield 6‘s did earlier this year. The next installment in the Battlefield series is due to release next week, but fans were given the chance to go hands-on with the title back in August. The test proved to be a huge success for EA, as the beta was the biggest in Battlefield history and even managed to surpass Call of Duty‘s all-time concurrent player count peak on Steam.