Since 2007, Call of Duty has released an annual title without fail, and for a time in the 2010s it also released its main competitor, Battlefield. Battlefield took a brief hiatus before returning with Battlefield 6 earlier this year.
Only real people will remember the Christmas lobby with the influx of level 1 players and double XP all weekend no matter what the annual COD is.
Every year, thousands of children, teenagers and adults make Call of Duty or Battlefield their biggest wish for Christmas, and it often seems like their wish has been granted, with a huge influx of new players at Christmas.
Yeah, about that…
Judging by the player count data available on SteamDB, Christmas seems to have done little to relaunch Battlefield 6 or Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Both suffered from concurrent player issues either at launch (Black Ops 7) or in the following months (Battlefield 6).
Battlefield 6 player count drops to all-time low after failed Winter Offensive update.
The Winter Offensive update wasn't very well received. Of course it is. The game feels very broken.
The end result is two seemingly shaky live service games with very muted player bases.
Both titles were heavily discounted and seem to have had little impact.
As of this writing, 70,527 players are actively playing Battlefield 6. That's up from just a few days ago, when the game hovered in the mid-40,000s. The 24-hour high was 99,369 players, a far cry from the all-time high of 747,440 players seen at launch.
On Christmas Day, the game ranged from approximately 75,000 players to less than 100,000. But within a few hours, the numbers were back to normal trends.
On the Black Ops 7 side, there are currently 44,396 players in the game. Notably, 44,396 players are engaged in some way with the Call of Duty app. Because it's all in the Call of Duty app.
It's unclear how much of that will be included in Black Ops 7, but considering the poor reviews, it's safe to assume it won't be much.
Black Ops 7's peak 24-hour player count is 51,017, with things not peaking between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day due to the influx of new players. In fact, looking at the analysis over the course of a week, the game was more popular almost a week ago on Sunday (62,442 players) than it is now.
In the run up to Christmas, Black Ops 7 has been discounted by up to 50% off the recommended retail price. This is something that has rarely happened historically. Meanwhile, Battlefield 6 was a major sale during Black Friday and is currently on sale at various retailers for as low as $39.99.
Other than giving the games away for free, it's unclear what more Battlefield 6 or Black Ops 7 need to do to return to video game glory. Based on the player counts above, it doesn't seem like many gamers have asked Santa for either title.
- released
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October 10, 2025
- ESRB
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Ages 17+ / Blood and gore, intense violence, strong language, in-app purchases, user interaction
- developer
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Battlefield Studio
Asking Santa for a Pokémon game makes me feel like a kid again
Trying to convince Santa to let you catch everything for Christmas has a nostalgic feel to it.
