Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is finally here, and while this should be a relatively exciting time for fans of the series, instead, it appears that a good portion of the community is upset with Activision for using AI art to help make some of the game’s calling cards. Activision hasn’t officially confirmed that it used AI tools to create the calling card artwork, but it has confirmed it uses AI tools for some of the game’s development assets. The publisher is vague about what assets these are, but it seems pretty obvious.
Last week, shortly before the game’s official release, a user on X named Kume pointed out the alleged use of AI art for some of the calling cards that can be earned from the campaign and endgame completion. This isn’t an entirely new controversy for Activision. At least, not when it comes to using AI tools for some portion of the development.
As noted by IGN, Activision was accused earlier this year of using generative AI art to make a zombie Santa loading screen for Black Ops 6. The company then admitted to the use of AI tools for this purpose. The community was understandably not happy with this discovery. AI art isn’t exactly favorable with a lot of people online. Mainly because AI draws from the work of real artists to make its creations. In Call of Duty’s case, the use of AI to make in-game assets of any kind is likely taking away from artists who could be employed to do the job. Hence, the community’s backlash.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is allegedly using AI to make the art for calling cards across a variety of modes
While the initial post calling this out referenced calling cards from the campaign and the endgame modes, it’s suspected that calling cards from multiplayer and zombies modes are using calling cards with AI art as well. If you’ve never seen AI art before, it’s easy to miss. But if you’ve spent any time online in the past year and a half, you can spot it a mile away.
Tools like Grok , ChatGPT , and Sora all have very noticeable styles of AI art. ChatGPT, for instance, went viral for a few weeks for its use of the Studio Ghibli art style to create images. There are several calling cards using this art style in the game. While Activision so far hasn’t confirmed the use of AI art for any of these, it seems pretty blatant.
In addition to the calling cards, Activision is also reportedly using AI art for other parts of the game. Such as the icons you get from the prestige system. It’s also been noted that old calling cards seem to be reused. At least one calling card from an older game in the franchise was spotted, with the name simply having been changed. This isn’t likely to tank the game, but it’s certainly not a good look.
