Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 Reloaded launched on Thursday Jan. 8, and amongst a few new maps, it also brought with it the first major tie-in event. From a collaboration with the Fallout television series, there are a bunch of new operator skins, including Maximus, kitted out in his T-60 Power Armor, the Ghoul, and shortly, Lucy will arrive too as part of a store-bought bundle. They look excellent, so for fans of the show, they’re a brilliant addition.
Two new limited time modes have arrived too: “S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Mayhem,” which modifies core modes (Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, etc.) by introducing passive damage from radiation and Fallout-themed power-ups you can collect upon getting kills; and “The Ghouls,” which is a spin on the standard Infected party mode, where once you die, you become infected and try to eliminate the survivors. Deathclaws also feature, so it’s more than just a mode reskin, but the fact that killing an infected still shows “Zombie killed” on your screen instead of “Ghoul killed” is a disappointing oversight.
The star of the show for the Fallout collab is Vault Town, though, the reskinned Nuketown variant. The execution here is superb. An enormous Vault-Tec Industries Googie-style sign just outside of the map, complete with a moving arm for the iconic outstretched thumb of Vault Boy, overlooks the playable area. It’s surrounded by thematic flags — the New California Republic emblem and Yes Man’s face to name two. On the other side of the town, there’s a huge red rocket structure that looks straight out of Fallout 4’s Nuka-World.
Within the map itself, you’ll find countless references and classic Fallout imagery. A faux entrance to Vault 111 is in the backyard of one of the houses, next to a greenhouse where, hovering back and forth within, is a Mr. Handy watering the plants. There’s even a poster ad outside, describing Mr. Handy as “man’s best friend, reinvented,” as the three-armed robot wrestles with six dogs while carrying a shopping bag.
In both houses, you’ll find a myriad of Vault Boy bobbleheads amongst familiar wall art, including the Nuka Cola pin-up girl, a Lucky 38 promo, a Sunset Sarsaparilla ad, and more. One of the garages has a suit of Power Armor docked. The bus in the middle of the road has a Nuka Cola livery. The inaccessible house has a “Welcome Home” banner in front of the garage, with blue and yellow balloons. Point is, a lot of care and attention has gone into the finer details, and it means Vault Town is one of the best Nuketown variants we’ve ever seen.
With that said, there’s one glaring oversight. You may be aware that Nuketown maps typically feature mannequins, and there’s usually a hidden Easter egg where if you shoot the heads off them within a certain timeframe — recent Black Ops games have had it set to 90 seconds — it triggers something cool, such as the mannequins coming to life as zombies, or the screen near the moving truck featuring playable old school arcade games.
Black Ops 7‘s Nuketown 2025 didn’t launch with an Easter egg, which isn’t too much of a surprise given Black Ops 6 didn’t have one immediately either, but it was added with Season 1. In fact, you can’t even shoot the heads off the mannequins in Nuketown 2025. However, the fact that you can decapitate the synths in Vault Town would imply the Easter egg has returned — and there’d be serious potential for something Fallout-themed, such as the atom bomb dropping in the distance or an iconic Fallout song playing, like Big Iron by Marty Robbins or Ain’t That A Kick In The Head by Dean Martin. However, after racing around the map multiple times to knock the heads and arms off all the mannequins as quickly as possible, it doesn’t appear to trigger anything.
Instead, it feels like Vault Town is missing that cherry on top that would cement it as a true classic. It’s still Nuketown at heart, but if the devs had gone one step further, it could’ve been seriously freaking cool.
