Activision have just shown off a bunch of new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7-related stuff as part of a COD Next showcase, and naturally one of the biggest talking points is a simp shooting people through walls. Well, to be more accurate, a clip of a pro player called Simp using the new Gravemaker killstreak reward, which resembles the sorts of wallhacking cheats the publishers have been trying their best to give the secure boot.
As you can see in the couple of clips I’ve scattergunned into the walls of this article, Gravemaker grants those who earn it the ability to see the thermal stick figures of other players through whatever layers of brick or concrete might be in the way, before gently popping these targets out of existence with a sniper rifle. I assume you can add a 360 spin into the process too, if you fancy going full ‘mother, retrieve the photographic device’.
Gravemaker’s immediately proven as controversial as you might expect, with professional codders wondering whether they’ll decide on a gentleperson’s agreement not to use it in their high-stakes matches. It’s also sticking in the craw of some non-pro players, who’ve recently been ordered by Activision to make sure secure boot’s enabled on their PC if they want to be able to play Blops 7. The reason the publishers have given for that requirement is an effort to get rid of cheating, which can see offenders gain an unfair advantage by enabling the likes of aimbots or, er, the ability to see and shoot foes through walls.
Now, to be fair, Gravemaker isn’t a permanent effect someone will have enabled every moment of a match, even if the best of the best may be able to queue a number of short nine shot-long bursts of it up to deploy in quick succession. Since it’s part of the game, there’s also the opportunity for the perks like cold-blooded or gear to offer built-in countermeasures that’ll render you not so much of a sitting duck.
There’s also the matter of it not being realistic, but given the unlikeliness of tactical nuclear bombs being regularly lobbed at tiny squares in which two little teams are having a timed scrap, that horse arguably bolted from the killstreak stable a while ago.
I think my main issue is that if you’re going to offer wonderfully ludicrous killstreaks, you should go all-in and own it. One of the other things shown off during COD Next was a special pickup truck in Blops 7’s Zombies mode. It’s dubbed Ol’ Tessie, and serves as a shuffling corpse-proof method of transport “through the malevolent fog coating the Dark Aether”.
I know you’re now deeply ashamed of being known as the Beavis and Butthead shooter, Call of Duty, but stick those two annoying goofs in a similar pickup and have them rage around the map as a killstreak, with anyone who wanders into auditory range of their sniggers starting to lose health. Have Stan from American Dad transform into a dragon and hand the enemy team bows and Dragonshouts so they’re forced to go full Skyrim for a minute. Have a horde of Squid Game characters roam around with instakill baseball bats, and if they get five kills during one streak, the rest of the match features the audio backdrop of a helium-huffing Morgan Freeman reading the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau backwards.
Embrace your calling as not-quite-Fortnite. That’s all I, someone who has a comically little amount of skin in the game, ask. Anyway, here’s a full recap of Cod Next’s other major announcements. Blops 7’s open beta kicks off this weekend, with pre-orderers and certain Game Pass subscribers able to hop in from October 2nd, while everyone else has to wait until October 5th.
