If reports are to be believed, Activision’s initial plan was to not release a new Call of Duty game in 2023 for the first time in many years, though that, of course, ended up not being the case, with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 due out next month. And while it remains to be seen whether the company will decide to give the series a year off anytime soon, it does look like Activision has the next few years already planned out for Call of Duty releases- which, given the scale of the franchise, shouldn’t surprise anyone.
In a recent interview with GamesBeat, Activision president Rob Kostich said that the company has a plan in place for Call of Duty releases between now and 2027, with several things already being in the works.
“We’re constantly in our planning phase, our long-term planning phase,” he said. “Right now, we have games planned out all the way through ’27 for the things that we’re working on. All those things are great learning experiences. Anything that’s happened in the past is a great learning experience. We’ve got a massive focus group around the world who tells us what they think each and every day about the franchise that we pay particular attention to.”
Kostich went on to add that, through the coming years, the plan will remain for Call of Duty to keep trying to deliver differentiated experiences, as it has done in the past with its contemporary, futuristic, and World War 2 settings.
“Look, we’ve learned,” he said. “I think we’ve done a lot of games in the future. We probably went as far there as we possibly could. We made some of the games in the past. You start to see the sweet spot over time and what really resonates with the community. You see things like the Modern Warfare and Black Ops franchises are really popular. We’ve certainly had some other games that have done really well, like the original World War 2 game from Sledgehammer in 2017 did really, really well as well. It’s a balance, I think most importantly, that we feel like we actually need to provide good differentiated experiences, good things for people to get in, and feel like they’re experiencing new kinds of fun.”
Of course, one thing we can be sure of is that, Call of Duty games will be coming to both, PlayStation and Nintendo consoles for the next 10 years if Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard should go through (and it’s looking increasingly likely that it will).
As for what lies beyond the upcoming Modern Warfare 3 for the Call of Duty franchise, leaks have claimed that the development for 2024’s instalment is being led by Treyarch, suggesting that it could be another Black Ops instalment.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, meanwhile, is due out on November 10 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.