Black Ops 7's PC launch is off to a terrific start with triple the glory for its players on the battlefield.

We can witness the downfall of a giant in real time. In a bygone era, the launch of a new Call of Duty game was a big event: people would take time off work, kids would feign illness to get out of school, and miles-long queues would form outside stores before the midnight release. In comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has started with a bang.

Released at midnight EST on November 14th (5 am GMT/9 pm PST), Call of Duty saw a surge in player numbers on Steam, with many players who played previous games in October staying awake for its launch.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is off to a rocky start

Players looking for campaign intel in Call of Duty Black Ops 7.

According to SteamDB's data, 62,938 players were on the Call of Duty Steam launcher when Black Ops 7 launched this morning. Just a few hours ago, 40,000 players played it. That means only 23,000 additional players joined the midnight launch of the latest Call of Duty game. The number of players playing the game on October 26 was roughly the same, suggesting hype levels for Black Ops 7 are at an all-time low.

By contrast, on its launch day last year, Black Ops 6 reached more than 249,000 concurrent players, up from 306,000 that weekend. It can still get there, but it needs a big push.

Of course, there will be claims that “it's midnight, people will be in bed,” but Battlefield 6 maintained three times the player count of Call of Duty at the time, with 191,764 players still online when Black Ops 7 launched. Notably, Arc Raiders still had 337,000 players at the time, so it looks like Call of Duty doesn't have the power to take people away from their existing games (or their bedtimes).

Battlefield 6 maintained three times the player count of Call of Duty, with 191,764 players still online when Black Ops 7 launched.

There are obviously some caveats to this, and it's a bit premature not to say: the game, like last year's Black Ops 6, will launch on Xbox Game Pass, and of course, a large part of players will get their Call of Duty fix on Microsoft's platform, and it's very early for the game. Rising is a very strong competition this year as well with the aforementioned two games and Delta Force being the powerhouse. However, as far as Call of Duty launches go, it's completely lackluster. With numbers steadily declining for previous entries in the franchise, Activision and Microsoft should be worried.