On November 14, 2025, the new installment for the Call of Duty universe will be released with Black Ops 7. A topic that has been hotly debated in the community for months: the design of the skins that players can earn in the new online shooter. Currently, the Simpsons are fueling the fire of the controversy.
What’s up with the Simpsons? Well, the likeable family from Springfield is in the spotlight of the new season of Fortnite. Until November 29, fans of the battle royale shooter can dive into survival battles on a new map and earn all sorts of quirky skins for their own accounts (or buy them in the shop).
Included: a Bart Simpson bundle, Homer’s car, battle pass skins for the key characters, and much more. This seems to be well-received. According to the well-known Fortnite leaker Shiina, there were more than 2.6 million players online simultaneously in the shooter on November 2, 2025 (Source: X). The website tracker.gg even shows a peak of almost 2.9 million simultaneously active players on November 3.
For comparison: The most popular game on Steam is known to be Counter-Strike 2, where only “around” 1.4 million players were online simultaneously in the peak hours in the past 24 hours (Source: steamdb.info).
Target audience “Fortnite players”?
What does this have to do with Call of Duty? The player Lumenprotoplasma takes the current success of the Simpsons season as an opportunity to bring up the already hotly debated topic of cosmetic skins again in the Call of Duty Reddit area.
His question to the community: “Why do skins in Call of Duty only create negativity while they are breaking records in other games?” This question has already garnered over 1,100 upvotes and more than 680 comments.
- Spiritual_Bird5970 expressed a clear opinion on Reddit: “Because Call of Duty is supposed to be a military game, and Fortnite was made to offer these skins.”
- RuggedTheDragon adds on Reddit: “Because people believe that Call of Duty must maintain an identity, namely that of a military simulation. The same goes for Battlefield. Fortnite has always taken a somewhat silly approach to cosmetic items, which is why no one complains about it.”
- USS_Massachusetts points out on Reddit: “If I had to guess, I would say it’s either because Fortnite is not a serious game and all skins have become part of the gimmick. Or because CoD added such skins to appeal to the Fortnite audience, ruining the original military sim feel. So I think it’s less about the skins themselves being the problem but rather the environment in which they occur.”
- SamShakusky71 expresses on Reddit another idea as to why skins for Call of Duty have historically been very little military/authentic: “The fact is that an overwhelming majority of CoD players buy them, and the revenues are considerable.”
What does Activision plan for Black Ops 7? Already in August, the developers of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 commented on the topic and promised that the new installment should feel “authentic” – which is why they want to be more cautious with the offering of skins than in the past.
An unfortunate but necessary measure to ensure the targeted authenticity: Players of Black Ops 6 will not be able to carry over their purchased or earned skins to Part 7. You can find all the information about this here: Call of Duty finally wants the skins to look authentic again, doing it in a way that could upset some players
