There are very few things that are a certainty in gaming, but one of them is that a new Call of Duty title will release every year, which means it’s time to dive into the speculation surrounding the next instalment of the widely popular Activision military combat simulation series.
The embers of the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are not even cold yet, and Warzone remains one of the most popular games on the planet. However, Activision has never been a company to sit back on their laurels, so it is already time to discuss the next entry of the series.
The franchise is one of the biggest in the gaming world. Since the first game was released in 2003, there have been a staggering 31 video games released under the Call of Duty banner for every platform imaginable from PC to mobile phones, Nintendo Switch to the Wii, PlayStation, and Xbox.
There is currently a major motion picture film in production based on the video game and plenty of merchandise available such as the themed Call of Duty Black Ops monopoly game and officially licensed Risk Call of Duty Black Ops strategy board game. There is even a Call of Duty Modern Warfare slot game developed by Cryptologic available on online casinos that offer free spins casino bonuses such as LeoVegas and Betfair.
While the company has not been forthcoming about a specific release date yet, we can be virtually certain another title will be released in 2021. Black Ops Cold War was released in mid-November last year, but that was due more to it being a game for the next generation of console, namely the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, so the launch was directly tied to the release schedule of the new consoles by Sony and Microsoft.
However, Autumn releases are widespread in the Call of Duty series with the most common release window between the middle of October and the beginning of November. It is safe to assume the new entry to the series will launch around that time.
In terms of production, it is a little bit difficult to tell exactly who will be building most of the game because there are now four significant studios that work on Call of Duty titles under the Activision banner. They are Infinity Ward, which has been around since the original title in 2003, Treyarch, who began developing Call of Duty games in 2005, Sledgehammer Games, who joined in 2011, and Raven Software, who became part of the team in 2020.
It seems Sledgehammer Games is the most likely candidate to be the leading developer of the game, and if that is the case, there is a high chance this could be one of the most polished entries to the franchise on release. The reason for both of those things is that Sledgehammer was reportedly planning on releasing their CoD game in 2020 but pushed it out to this year with Treyarch launching Black Ops Cold War instead.
The gameplay setting for the title is also a bit of a mystery at this stage. There was what seemed to be a pretty solid rumour that it would be a spiritual sequel to Modern Warfare and be based on a fictional World War 3. However, one industry insider has claimed this is not the case, while neither Activision nor Sledgehammer have confirmed or denied the claim.
It would make sense for it to be the setting, especially if Sledgehammer is behind the production because mobility and player movement are a particular speciality of theirs and have become an increasingly popular aspect of modern shooters thanks to titles like Apex Legends.
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