For the first time in years, Battlefield might finally be making Call of Duty sweat.
Call of Duty is usually the king of the sales charts long before it even drops, but Battlefield is close to dethroning the king. Black Ops 7, set to release on November 14th, is already up for pre-order, and you’d expect it to be head and shoulders above the competition on the PlayStation Store, but to everyone’s surprise, that is not how things have panned out.
Reports show that the game is not performing badly, yet it’s not the usual Call of Duty dominance that we are used to seeing. The Vault Edition, which comes with Early Beta Access starting October 2nd, is currently sitting in sixth place on the U.S. PlayStation pre-order list. It is lagging behind several NBA 2K26 versions, Battlefield 6, EA Sports FC 26, and even the newly released Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater.
An argument can be made for all of these titles mentioned for being above COD but what’s truly surprising is that even the cheaper cross-gen bundle of Black Ops 7 is being beaten out by the likes of Borderlands 4, Gears of War: Reloaded, and a new title called Ghost of Viote.
The UK paints a similar picture. For the first time in a long, long time, a Call of Duty game hasn’t immediately shot to the top of the PlayStation Store charts after its announcement. That shows that Activision’s “too big to fail” mentality is starting to get shaky.
We know that Black Ops 7 will still sell incredibly well, as the COD franchise always does, but for Activision’s standards, the momentum is not promising. Also Battlefield 6 clearly has hit the ground running, so it’s easy to see why some fans think the competition could be heating up in a way we haven’t seen since the Infinite Warfare days.
The thing is that people are experiencing what we call “COD fatigue.” Call of Duty has faced heavy criticism for feeling too much like the same game every cycle, and the excitement for the series has just consistently been dropping with each new installment.
On the flip side, Battlefield has been known to fumble its launches with bugs and performance issues, but if EA does not pull a classic EA move again, and boy that’s a big “if,” they could really chip away at Call of Duty’s dominance.
That said, it’s worth remembering that the full multiplayer and zombies reveal for Black Ops 7 hasn’t even happened yet. Those are the modes that usually make or break the game for most players, and Activision is set to showcase them next month.
So maybe the slower pre-orders aren’t a sign of trouble, but just fans waiting to see if Black Ops 7 has something fresh to offer. Regardless, Activision has no time to waste, or else they could be left playing a game of catch-up, and that only happens once in a blue moon. So maybe the Battlefield franchise can give Activision a taste of their own medicine; otherwise, COD’s domination is here to stay.
