Activision has reportedly decided to delay next year’s Call of Duty game, thus marking the first time in nearly 20 years it’s skipped an annual release.
That’s according toBloomberg, which claims that the company decided to push back the release of a newTreyarch-led game after last year’sVanguardfailed to meet expectations, “leading some executives to believe that they’re introducing new versions too rapidly”.
Activisionis reportedly working on other projects to fill the gap next year, including “a steady stream of additional content” for this year’s premium CoD game, and a “new, free-to-play online title”.
A spokesperson for Activision told VGC: “We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond. Reports of anything otherwise are incorrect. We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right.”
It wasrecently officially confirmedthat this year’s Call of Duty release will be a sequel to 2019’sModern Warfarereboot, developed byInfinity Ward. Activision is also working on a new iteration of battle royale gameWarzone.
Call of Duty’s year off will coincide withMicrosoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, should the deal be completed as planned by summer 2023. However, Bloomberg claims this had no influence on the decision to delay next year’s game.
It’snotedthat Call of Duty is often the best-selling console game in most years, so its sudden absence could be significant for the games market.
Following the launch of the free-to-play Warzone game in 2020, Call of Duty production has gone into overdrive. Activision confirmed last year thatall of its core studios are now working on the franchise.
https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1496270834767441923
Since the 2019 Modern Warfare instalment, subsequent releases have been handled by Treyarch, Raven andSledgehammer Games, meaning Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward will have had three years to prepare for this year’s sequel.
However, the past two CoD instalments, which were developed partly during the pandemic, were less well-received by fans.
2021’sVanguard sales were also significantly downon its predecessor, even though it still topped sales rankings in the US, potentially further incentivising Activision to give the series a year off to improve quality.
DespiteMicrosoft’s proposed Acquisition of Activision, the company is reportedly committed to releasingat least the next three Call of Duty games for PlayStation consoles.
