Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has increased its use of AI-generated art over its already slop-ified predecessor. Despite hundreds of workers across over a half-dozen studios working on the annual FPS game, the latest BloPs game houses an extremely egregious amount of generative “artwork”.
Call of Duty has already been criticised for its reliance on AI-generated artwork in the past. 2023’s Modern Warfare 3 included an AI-generated calling card in its $15 cosmetic Yokai Wrath bundle, and Black Ops 6—last year’s entry—was lambasted for its use of a generated image of a zombie Santa, which infamously had six fingers instead of five.
This year, the shame gloves are off, and Activision has pushed customers face-first into the up-chuck of machine-generated visuals. There is an extreme amount of AI artwork used within the base version of the game, despite the fact that last year’s Black Ops 6 made over $1 billion in its first 10 days on sale—the highest-grossing CoD game ever.
We haven’t seen all of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 yet. After all, the game has just come out, but AI artwork infests almost every facet of the experience. There are levels with AI-generated posters, other smeared assets reek of the technology, and the game’s Calling Cards are just populated with gross, prompted images that are still covered in the hilarious AI-urine filter we see everywhere today.
As many fans have shared online, dozens of Black Ops 7 Calling Cards are using AI instead of paying human artists to draw small pieces of artwork. Remember: this is a franchise that makes over a billion dollars every single year, and Activision doesn’t want to shell out for human artists. It’s not like the company is hiding it. Currently, the game’s Steam page even has a disclaimer saying: “Our team uses generative AI tools to help develop some in game assets.“
A number of Calling Cards in the game are using the same “Ghibli-style” anime generation that exploded all over social media a year ago. Reeled In, an image showing a Knight next to two villagers reeling in a fish that’s eating his helmet (what?) is the most damning example of this. What’s worse is that a number of these AI-generated Calling Cards don’t even seem creative, they just seem like images prompted by a bored intern who doesn’t have a creative bone in their body.
In Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, even the game’s toughest rewards are generated by AI, not even bothering to use human art to celebrate the game’s achievements. Almost every single calling card relating to the game’s campaign uses AI artwork, even the rewards for beating its bizarre endgame scenario.
The worst offender is the game’s Prestige icons, the crème de la crème of CoD achievements for those who really care. While these icons do appear to be slightly touched up ever so slightly, they reek of generative tools with over-designed lines, smeared details and other design inconsistencies.
All of this leads to the question: what the hell is the $70 for? Call of Duty is not made by some struggling indie dev who’s big fault is that they can’t draw. This isn’t a case of AI-generated placeholders forgetting to to be replaced with real assets or even upscaling old digital art from a dog-water resolution. This is the biggest gaming franchise on Planet Earth essentially ripping players off.
When I pay for a game, I pay for a service to the creatives making that game, the same way if I’m paying for a book, I’m paying for the writer who spent months typing that story out in their word processor of choice. When AI replaces human artists, it’s not just the artists getting shafted, it’s also you getting ripped off. You used to be paying for this art, now you’re paying for nothing, but you’re still paying.
There’s always going to be a conversation of when is AI acceptable, and everyone is going to have their own opinion on where that bar can be crossed. (For example, I think Arc Raiders’ AI voices are a huge detriment to the experience). But what shouldn’t be an opinion is what AI art is worth, because it is worth nothing. No one made it. And no one, especially not Activision, should be charging for it.
