The latest installment in the Call of Duty series is hours away from worldwide release, but you can already jump into it if you don’t mind some setting tweaks. Once more, Black Ops 7 is launching in a staggered way, becoming available at midnight local time in each region on November 14, 2025, and this means you can trick the game using the region-switch technique, appearing as living in one of the countries that get access to the game first, such as New Zealand.
Before we get into the details, note that this technique doesn’t work for PC players who bought the game on Steam and Battle.net. These platforms have a single launch time: 5am GMT / 12am ET, meaning everyone gets access to the game at the same time. That said, those playing through PC Game Pass can follow the same steps as Xbox and PlayStation players and unlock the game up to 13 hours earlier.
Regardless of the platform, first you will need to go to callofduty.com and connect using the account you have linked to your console. Click on your profile name and select Basic Info. On the next page you need to change your address to a New Zealand one. Logically, you can enter a gibberish address and things should still work as long as you select New Zealand as a country, but if you want you can find address examples on the internet or use a random address from Google Maps.
The next step will depend on your console; on PlayStation you shouldn’t need to do this step, but we will explain it just in case. So, to do this on PlayStation 5, go to Settings, System, Date and Time, and set your Time Zone to UTC+12:00 Wellington, i.e. the New Zealand time zone. Restart your console to be sure the changes are taken into account.
On Xbox, go to your console Settings, System, Language & location, in the Location menu select New Zealand. Press Restart Now to reboot your console.
On PC – only if you play the game through Game Pass – go to Settings, Time & language, Language & region, and select New Zealand in Country or region. You may also want to change the Date & Time to Auckland or Wellington, while you are at it, just to cover all angles. A system restart is recommended here too. Now, you should be able to launch and play Black Ops 7.
If you don’t care about being the first to play and just want to get ready when the game becomes available in your region, note that pre-loading is already be available if you own any version of Black Ops 7. You should find the download button in your COD HQ app or in your console store.
Now you are set to enjoy the game among the first fans, who by the way are already playing as the New Zealand launch window has passed. So good luck and have fun.
