Black Ops 7: Best loadouts and builds

The launch of CoD: Black Ops 7 has introduced almost 30 new weapons, a surprisingly small number to configure your builds and loadouts from. Despite this, each build can be enhanced by different perks, a plethora of attachments, and additional high-tech gear.

Whether you’re engaged in close-quarters combat in Team Deathmatch or more strategic, objective-based play in the larger Skirmish game mode, optimising the best Black Ops 7 loadouts for the different playstyles will give you a strong competitive advantage.

When you first start up Black Ops 7, you won’t be able to play around with your loadouts too much, nor will you have many weapons to try out. You’ll first unlock the ability to modify and customise your loadouts at Rank Four, which you’ll get to after a few matches online.

Some of the most important factors that will set your loadouts apart are Wildcards and your Perks, both of which will be used to maximise your outfit for your specific playstyle.

The Ryden 45K is the base SMG that you get when you start the game, and it shines far beyond expectations. With tightly controlled recoil and a very high rate of fire, it’s going to be perfect for any close-quarters combat builds you have.

Since you’ll be running and gunning, anticipate that your ammo will deplete quickly. In a pinch, the Akita comes into play thanks to the Overkill Wildcard, which grants you the ability to use any primary weapons as your secondary. The compact shotgun is adept at finishing off an enemy you’d otherwise need to reload your primary for.

An EMP and Needle Drone serve as the perfect gadgets to engage an entire room with debilitating crowd control and suppression, so you can pick each enemy off with your SMG. The combination of Lightweight, Dexterity and Fast Hands perks means you’ll never be under pressure to reload or escape when the bullets start flying.

The star of this loadout is the AK-27, a tidy little assault rifle with a high rate of fire and damage output. This can be interchangeable with most of the assault rifles available, with our second choice being the DS20 Mirage.

As for a secondary, the Velox 5.7 is a solid choice for picking off enemies when you’re fresh out of ammo. Unlike our previous build, we’ve chosen the Prepper wildcard over Overkill in order to carry an additional Field Upgrade. This lets you carry two Fear Traps, which will disorient enemies with psychoactive poisons. This is paired with Psych Grenades for tacticals, meaning you’ll have an offensive range of crowd control items to control wide areas and narrow corridors.

For the Lethal, Point Turrets can be deployed to provide suppressive fire on blind spots and tight corridors.

Black Ops 7’s Skirmish gamemode borrows its design from Battlefield’s Conquest game modes, but with Call of Duty’s trademark close-quarters combat. The maps are large with high vantage points perfectly positioned for sniping.

The Shadow SK is the ideal sniper for this, dealing heaps of damage and semi-automatic firing mode. With Overkill, you can equip a Ryden 45K (or any other primary of your choice), which will keep you safe when you’re attacking or defending objectives.

The three perks all lead towards the Scout speciality, with the most important being Tracker, allowing you to see enemy footsteps on the map.

The main draw behind the M8.A1 is its burst fire mode, which is easily controlled and deals a healthy amount of damage. This is especially useful in smaller game modes with tight corridors. The Velox 5.7, the best secondary pistol in the game, will be your backup for expansive firefights. The Wildcard for this build will be the Flyswatter, which lets you carry around a Launcher instead of a melee weapon. This primes the loadout for Skirmish, in which it’s all too easy to rack up kills using a rocket launcher. The Echo Unit is going to be essential for this build, giving you options to bait out enemies.

For perks, we’d advise taking Flak Jacket to protect against explosive damage and pairing this with Blast Link to enhance your own frags. Dexterity will be your final perk, giving you mobility enhancements for zipping around the map.

The inclusion of Skirmish has evolved the typical Call of Duty gameplay styles. Now, players can plan and account for much larger maps than ever before. This means that builds that span across sniper rifles, light machine guns and SMGs are all competitive now.

The best builds make use of Wildcards and Perks to enhance playstyles for the specific mode, with TDM favouring silent, stealthy traits, whereas Skirmish favours an expansive weapons arsenal with plenty of tools.