Since 2005, a new mainstream Call of Duty game has been released every year, but that will reportedly change next year. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Activision Blizzard is delaying a Call of Duty game that was set to arrive in 2023.
After last year’s yearly release, Call of Duty: Vanguard, failed to meet expectations, Activision is pushing the game, which Schreier claims is being created by Treyarch, the creators of Call of Duty: Black Ops. According to Schreier, this caused officials to “believe that it had been cannibalized by the previous year’s game.” According to a recent SEC filing, Vanguard failed to reach Activision’s fourth-quarter estimates.
Activision, on the other hand, appears to be planning to release more content for the mainstream game. Activision has previously confirmed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be released in 2022, with “a continual trickle of extra content,” according to Schreier. In addition to the eventual release of Warzone 2, which Schreier confirmed in a tweet, there will be a new free-to-play online game coming in 2023.
Both the Modern Warfare sequel and a “new Warzone experience” (perhaps the Warzone 2 Schreier described) were announced by Activision in February, and both are set for release this year. While Activision claims that they’ll be “created together from the bottom up,” it’s unclear whether the new Warzone will be a full sequel or a major update to the original. A new engine will power both of them.
Due to a lawsuit filed in California alleging that Activision fostered a culture of “continuous sexual harassment” and labor protests from employees, including some who worked on Call of Duty, the company has been heavily scrutinized. Microsoft said in January that it had reached an agreement to buy the company for $68.7 billion, though the deal isn’t scheduled to conclude until July of Microsoft’s fiscal year 2023.
