Call of Duty developers examine Safeguard issues

Safeguard, the team-based mode first introduced more than a decade ago in Black Ops III, has returned for Black Ops 7’s second season after last appearing in a main game in 2018. The mode’s core idea—pushing or defending a walking robot—remains intact, and many players find it a fun change of pace from pure kill-focused modes.

The mode gives defenders a way to contribute without hunting skilled opponents: focusing damage on the robot can force it to stop and reboot. The current robot is a four-legged mechanical dog rather than the previous bipedal models. A Treyarch spokesperson said the robot’s underlying speed is "consistent with previous" versions, but added that "BO7’s tighter map layouts, updated pathing, and the new animation set can make its movement feel faster, even though the underlying speed hasn’t changed much." They are reviewing data to see if the bot should move a bit slower.

Players have also run into rounds where a team reaches the checkpoint but still loses because the other team completed the route slightly faster.

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