Black Ops 7 What Is Cursed Mode Relics guide

After years of Zombies, you start to notice when a match gets too comfortable. You’ve got your route, your buy order, your little safety blanket of habits, and you can almost play on autopilot. Black Ops 7 doesn’t let that happen once Cursed Mode is on the table, and if you’re the kind of player who’s ever looked up CoD BO7 Boosting just to save time on the grind, this mode makes it clear you can’t shortcut the fundamentals. After the community breaks open the “Ashes of the Damned” quest, the game stops holding your hand: pistol start, no minimap, no sense of momentum, and a weird, tense quiet before everything goes sideways.

Relics Change The Rules

The best part is the Relic system, because it’s not some random “harder zombies” slider. You choose what kind of pain you want. There are nine Relics, and each one messes with a rule you’ve relied on for ages. The Grim Relics hit first, and they’re the kind that punish sloppy habits. “Teddy Bear” turns every bullet into an Essence drain, so spraying into a crowd isn’t just wasteful, it’s bankruptcy. “Dragon Wings” is even meaner in a different way: power-ups, the thing you’d normally chase without thinking, can actually hurt you. You’ll catch yourself hesitating, then realise you’ve been trained to grab the shiny stuff.

Economy Gets Stripped Away

If you keep going, the Sinister Relics start attacking your wallet and your confidence at the same time. “Focusing Stone” straight-up stops you earning Essence, which sounds impossible until you’re living it. Suddenly you’re counting knife swings, checking angles, and doing that awkward little shuffle to keep space because you can’t just buy your way out of trouble. Then the Wicked Relics mess with pacing and enemy behaviour, which is brutal because rhythm is everything in high rounds. Your “safe” train isn’t safe when the cadence changes.

Why Anyone Would Do This

People aren’t putting themselves through Cursed Mode just to suffer, though. The rewards have real teeth: Golden Armor, Ultra weapon rarity, and that ridiculous Tier IV Pack-A-Punch. It’s the kind of payoff that makes you play cleaner, not longer.

You get better because you have to, and that’s rare in modern Zombies. And yeah, it’s still a grind, but it feels like a grind with a point, especially if you’re chasing gear and looking at cheap CoD BO7 Boosting as a way to free up time for learning the mode instead of farming the same steps for hours.