Call Of Duty Black Ops 7 Left Money On The Table To Avoid Another Goofy Collab Skin Backlash

A senior developer behind the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 claims that the studio has turned down collaboration deals with “big brands” to avoid adding cosmetics that might not “fit.” This seems like a direct response to EA’s pledge to avoid silly skins in its soon-to-be-released shooter, Battlefield 6. So continues the ongoing goofy skin saga involving what will likely be two of 2025’s biggest games.

In a new interview with Dexerto, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7′s senior director of production, Yale Miller, was asked about the controversy around pricey crossover skins in Call of Duty and told the outlet that while Treyarch isn’t focused on solely creating “grounded” cosmetics, it only wants to add skins that “make sense” in Black Ops 7. And apparently, this had even led to the studio passing on big collaboration offers.

“There are opportunities that we have had lined up that, after some of our conversations, we straight up turned down,” Miller told Dexerto. “Big, big brands, big things, and we’re like, no. We’re not gonna do that because it just doesn’t fit.”

This is a stark contrast to what has appeared in past Call of Duty games, which have featured cosmetic skins based on celebrities like Nicki Minaj, Cheech and Chong, and Seth Rogen, as well as characters like Beavis and Butt-Head and Scream’s serial killer Ghostface. For a few years now, many fans online have been vocally unhappy about these crossovers and the yearly franchise’s focus on futuristic combat and over-the-top weapons.

Cosmetic Items In Battlefield 6 vs Black Ops 7

When Battlefield 6 was revealed earlier this year with a more grounded tone and devs on the upcoming shooter promised that it wouldn’t be filled with out-of-place celebrity crossovers, it seemingly put a lot of pressure on Call of Duty’s devs and publisher to make some changes. And they have, with Treyarch changing its plans to allow skins from last year to transfer over to Black Ops 7 (thus preventing the new game from instantly being filled with goofy cosmetics), and devs making further claims that they’re going to be mindful of what gets added. It all feels like Activision is directly responding to Battlefield 6′s massively popular open beta that garnered a lot of positive reactions online.

Still, don’t expect that all skins in the new Call of Duty will be realistic fatigues and soldier gear. Miler told Dexerto that the plan is still to include some oddball skins, pointing to Nuketown’s Block Party skins–featuring the map’s famous and creepy mannequins–as an example of a cosmetic that, while not realistic, still “feels right.” He similarly applied this logic to Black Ops 7’s special T.E.D.D. Operator skin for its zombies mode, telling the outlet: “That is not grounded, but it feels like when we show it to people and talk to people about it, they’re like, oh, yeah. Of course. That’s Black Ops.”

Dexerto also says that Miller wouldn’t completely rule out collab skins and cosmetic bundles, but once again emphasized that the plan is to only include stuff that feels like it fits in the world of BLOPS7.

“All intentions [are] to stick to stuff that we can hand on our heart, say, ‘Yeah, that feels Black Ops‘,” said Miller. “That’s really our goal. And I think that’s a good clarification versus ‘grounded.’”

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launches on consoles and PC on November 14. Battlefield 6 arrives on October 10. While we know which one is likely to be the bigger sales juggernaut, I’ll be curious to see which FPS is a bigger hit with fans. As silly as it might sound, the way each game handles cosmetics moving forward will be one of many factors that determine its success.