A new Call of Duty is coming in 2023 after all – but nobody can agree what it is
Activision are being coy about the scale and price of next year's Call of Duty
➡️ The Shortcut Skinny: Coy Call of Duty
😮 Activision will launch “the next full premium” Call of Duty game next year
🤔 Reports indicate it’ll be an expansion to Modern Warfare 2, rather than a fully-fledged title
🤷♂️ But Activision is remaining coy about what, exactly, it has planned
💪 At least we can expect a heap of Warzone 2.0 content in 2023
Activision has announced it will launch a new, premium Call of Duty game in 2023, appearing to contradict previous reports that no mainline title would release next year.
In its latest quarterly earnings report, Activision said it is “looking forward to building on its current momentum in 2023, with plans for next year including the most robust Call of Duty live operations to date, the next full premium release in the blockbuster annual series, and even more engaging free-to-play experiences across platforms.”
But what exactly a “full premium release” amounts to has people confused. A Bloomberg report earlier this year claimed Activision had delayed the next main Call of Duty title in response to 2020’s Call of Duty: Vanguard’s poor sales figures. The new game, which is being developed by Treyarch, will instead release in 2024, making 2023 the first year in two decades without a new mainline Call of Duty game.
Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier has stuck firmly to that prediction, claiming the premium release described in Activision’s latest earnings report is not a full game and not the next mainline release in the Call of Duty series. Rather, it’s a paid “continuation of Modern Warfare 2” that will expand its single-player campaign and add extra multiplayer content.
Schreier says Activision is simply calling it a premium release “because they're probably going to market and sell it as a $70 game”, although it’s unclear whether the expansion will require you to own Modern Warfare 2 or if it can be played as a standalone title.
It’s not the only Call of Duty content expected to release next year. Bloomberg’s original report also predicted a new free-to-play game will appear in 2023, alongside content for Warzone 2.0, which is scheduled to release on November 16.
It’s worth noting that Activision didn’t outright deny the report, saying: "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."
Activision won’t have to worry about poor sales figures this year, though. Modern Warfare 2 is the biggest Call of Duty launch of all time and the fastest game in the series to cross $1 billion in sales. Still, that hasn’t guaranteed it a spot on our list of the best PS5 games or best Xbox Series X games.