'We've got some big changes coming in Season 1': Call of Duty: Black Ops 7's design director talks buffing aim assist, adjusting spawn locations, and a drone pod nerf ahead of the next season

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Season 1 is only a couple of weeks away, but as we creep closer, the devs are still fine-tuning the multiplayer and campaign experience to ensure they're both as smooth as possible.

We've had plenty of patch notes and changes to this end. Treyarch has even changed the requirements for players to get into Endgame, opening it up to everyone. But now Matt Scronce, design director at Treyarch, has decided to go through some of the big changes in a dev diary, starting with aim assist.

"Aim assist is a big conversation and we have been closely monitoring that conversation, and of course, looking at our internal data, we're fairly happy with where we're at," Scronce says. "But we will be making some very nuanced changes and slightly increasing aim assist's strength over range ahead of Season 1."

The goal is apparently "to create a more balanced and competitive experience" by increasing the range of rotational aim assist. Although this comes with a new requirement: a player's right stick movement has to track an enemy for rotational aim assist to activate at its full strength. Which may work to balance out the aim assist strength buff, although the tweaks and changes with these features are usually so small that it's hard to tell whether it's even changed.

Scronce also touches upon other sore spots with Black Ops 7's multiplayer: "With spawns, we are always closely monitoring our spawn system and spawn logic across the board. We've got some big changes coming in Season 1. And then ahead of that, we're looking very closely at hardpoint free-for-all and team deathmatch spawns specifically."

Another big change will come in the form of a drone pod nerf. But, don't get your hopes up too high, as it doesn't sound like Treyarch has figured out all the kinks yet: "We have a ton of knobs and levers there, so we're still trying to figure out exactly how we're going to approach that. It may come down to reducing the number of drones or their flight speed, but rest assured, we are taking a close look at that one."

Other changes coming ahead of Season 1 include an increased visible range for the default minimap in multiplayer, weapon balances, and crash and stability updates.