Unique: “There is no new Call of Duty game next year”

Across Belgium

& nbsp- 02/24/2022 at 11:00

It’s about the new video game that Treyarch – the studio behind the Call of Duty: Black Ops series – is currently developing. Activision is shutting it down for now because the latest “Call of Duty: Vanguard,” released in September, has performed below expectations.

This created the idea within the publisher that the popular war games would follow one another very quickly. In particular, the success of Call of Duty: Warzone, a free online multiplayer game launched in 2020, is said to affect paid games.

For the first time in 20 years

The release in 2023 means there won’t be a new “Call of Duty” game for the first time in nearly two decades. Since 2005, Activision has released a new title in the lucrative series every year. Since the series began in 2003, 400 million copies have been sold.

“Call of Duty” games are rotated by several Activision game studios. The new title, due for release this fall, comes from the Infinity Ward group, which also created the first Call of Duty game. As compensation for the new game’s disappearance in 2023, additional content for the game will be worked on later this year. Next year there will also be a new version of “Warzone”.

“No connection with the acquisition of Microsoft”

Bloomberg sources confirm that the changing plans have nothing to do with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. The American technology group is paying nearly $69 billion to the computer game publisher, which still owns titles such as “World of Warcraft”, “Overwatch”, “Diablo” and “Candy Crush”.

For now, Activision will continue to operate independently and its games will also appear on platforms other than Microsoft (Xbox and Windows), such as Sony Playstation and Nintendo’s Switch. Once the deal is finalized, expected to happen in mid-2023, Microsoft can change that.