By Olivia Davis | Sep 10, 2025
The Time-to-Kill Comfort Zone in Call of DutyTTK can fall anywhere on the spectrum for shooters. Titles like Apex Legends and Destiny 2 tend to hover around much longer TTK for shootouts, while the Call of Duty franchise generally tends to lean towards lower time-to-kills for fast-paced action. Figuring out the best balance for TTK is not an easy practice, with some players favouring longer gun duels and others enjoying quick TTK eliminations more, instead of the arcade roots of Call of Duty.
Black Ops 6 was one of the first titles to offer a little faster TTK speed than earlier COD experiences, which the player-base mostly accepted. Fans critiqued previous attempts like 2023's Modern Warfare 3 for falling all over the board with TTK speed, as players felt the discrepancy swayed player experience in-game. Developers are generally faced with this issue as a result of weapons balancing discrepancies, which is probably why there are constant updates to games throughout their life cycle.
Black Ops 7's TTK Speed
Treyarch has now conveyed that Black Ops 7's TTK speed is going to be pretty close to that of Black Ops 6. In one of their computer updates, Design Director Matt Scronce elaborated, "currently sitting around Black Ops 6 TTK", and further added that the studio feels "the balance works well and is not too fast and not too slow." This balance allows for players to react while making weapons diverse and not making getting kills or knocking players down feel impossible.
Along with combat feedback, Treyarch is always taking community feedback and making a variety of updates/changes for players in Black Ops 7. The studio removed unnecessary aid in the Carry Forward scheme, but still allows feature content transfer on a limited basis, such as the following content from Black Ops 6: four Main Quest operator skins, a level 1000 Prestige skin, and the Guild Override camo. At the time of posting, the only restrictive skins remaining for Black Ops 6 are American Dad and Beavis & Butt-Head skins, mostly due to popularity potential.
More Features and Beta
Other updates include removing interactive doors, some minor tweaks to Vault Edition Skins, and some additional community-based adjustments. For players looking to play early, Black Ops 7 begins its open beta on October 5, with pre-order customers (who don't mind dropping $70-$130) gaining early access starting October 2.
If Treyarch got the TTK design right as we've come to expect, great TTK speed is a strong factor in determining player experience and with Treyarch putting forward familiar changes, Black Ops 7 is heading toward the right mixed balance between player speed and thought.
