Recently, however, Activision executive Peter Kelly – head of creative on Call of Duty – revealed sales figures for three Call of Duty games in a December court filing, as caught and reported by Game File– and the numbers are unsurprisingly high.

As per the court filing, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has sold over 30 million units worldwide since its release in 2019. Meanwhile, the title preceding it – 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot – stands at over 41 million units sold worldwide. Then there’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which has sold over 43 million units since releasing close to a decade ago in November 2015.

Call of Duty games selling staggering numbers isn’t the most surprising thing in the world- and as per the aforementioned court filing, the series certainly needs to sell that much if it is to turn a profit against its eye-watering development costs, with the aforementioned Black Ops Cold War’s development costing as much as over $700 million. Read more on that through here.

Caught and reported by Game File, development budget figures for three Call of Duty titles were revealed by Activision’s Patrick Kelly – who is head of creative on the Call of Duty franchise – in official court filings in December. As per the filing, 2020’s Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War had a development budget of over $700 million, 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot stands at over $640 million, while 2015’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 stands at over $450 million.

Kelly states in the filing that those figures cover “development costs over the game’s lifecycle” for each, suggesting that costs associated with developing each title’s post-launch content are included.

That said, it’s also worth noting that these figures only cover development costs- marketing costs, which usually tend to be just as high as development costs for AAA titles (especially for something like Call of Duty), are bound to take the total budget figures radically higher for the three aforementioned titles. Then again, all three titles have also sold exceedingly well, based on figures revealed by Kelly in the filing.

This puts Call of Duty at the top of the list of highest game development budgets. However, it’s worth noting that information on that front is scarce at best, thanks to the consistent reluctance of developers and publishers to disclose relevant numbers. Notable examples in recent years have been limited to the likes of The Last of Us Part 2, Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Concord, The Callisto Protocol, and others, though these newly revealed figures for Call of Duty put the shooter series far above any of those titles.

That’s as per The Verge’s Tom Warren, who claims in a recently published report that this year’s Xbox Games Showcase will happen on June 9, which is a Sunday. As per Warren, Microsoft will announce Gears 6 at the showcase, in addition to this year’s Call of Duty instalment.

The next instalment in the Gears of War franchise has been in the rumour mill for some time now, with recent reports claiming that it’ll be announced sometime this Summer. Meanwhile, leaks have claimed that this year’s Call of Duty game, titled Call of Duty: Black Ops Gulf War, will depict the titular conflict and feature a fully open world campaign.

Warren says previously announced first-party titles will also receive updates at the Xbox Games Showcase, including the likes of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024, all of which are officially due out this year.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is the Cross-Gen Bundle, which means you can play it on PS4 and PS5. It offers a new campaign set in the early 1980s during the Cold War with a varied campaign. Zombies is also included for co-op fun, though you may have trouble finding anyone for multiplayer, given the game’s age.

Alan Wake Remastered and Endling – Extinction is Forever are also playable on PS4 and PS5. The former sees writer Alan Wake venturing to Bright Falls and embroiled in a dark mystery based on his own story. It boasts improved visuals with 4K support while offering The Signal and The Writer DLCs. If you’re planning to play Alan Wake 2 when it launches on October 17th, then this is a good place to start (even if it’s not essential).

Endling – Extinction is Forever focuses on a fox who defends her cubs even as pollution ravages the world. While exploring during the day for food, you’ll sneak around during the night. Check out our review for more details.

Serial PS Plus leaker bilbil-kun over on Dealabs is the source of this leak once more, and as per them, offerings for the month of July will include Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (though only the PS4 version), Alan Wake Remastered, and Herobeat Studios’ apocalyptic survival adventure game Endling – Extinction is Forever.

PS4 and PS5 players who are subscribed to any of the three tiers of PlayStation Plus will be able to claim the three games and add them to their libraries throughout the month of July. As per the leaker, they will become available on July 4 and stay up for grabs until August 1.

Stay tuned for the official confirmation from Sony, which should be coming soon.

As per a report by GamesIndustry, several of last year’s games such as Far Cry 6, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ratchet and Clank: A Rift Apart, which were some of the best-sellers of the year, performed very well, selling more physically than digitally. The only exception to this is Resident Evil Village, which was marginally a little bit more popular on the digital front.

Nintendo games continue to perform well physically, unsurprisingly. Of all the physical copies sold, Switch had a share of 47%. Apart from that, FIFA 22‘s digital sales share was 61%, making it the fastest-growing digital product in the country, whereas the Call of Duty franchise saw the digital share drop year on year, with Call of Duty: Vanguard’s share being 58%.

EA’s F1 2021 in the end takes the bag for the biggest digital sales share for a new release, enjoying a 64% digital sales split.

Below, you can have a look at the 2021 UK sales chart with digital sales split to get an overview of the current market situation.

As recently reported by MP1st, some Call of Duty devs have spoken about their experiences with crunch while working on the franchise- specifically at Treyarch. Kate Anderson, part of Activision’s QA, recently took to Twitter to speak about the same, while also talking about how 14 hour work days were “common” during Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War’s development, and that employees would only be informed about the same with as little notice as five minutes.

Meanwhile, Jessica Gonzalez, former QA tester at Treyarch and Blizzard Entertainment, also spoke about similar experiences during the development of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which also saw 14 hour work weeks quite often. Interestingly, Gonzalez also talked about the game’s PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, and how trying to get the game running on the older consoles was so “abysmal” that it “broke entire builds”. She also mentioned that development on the game was “so behind” that Treyarch had to cancel the game’s entire campaign on old-gen machines.

Crunch has been a widespread issue in the industry, but though it’s not surprising that a franchise like Call of Duty is as demanding for its developers as it is, it is disappointing that it’s not managed better by studio management and Activision. Of course, Microsoft is in the process of acquiring Activision Blizzard, so hopefully this will be an area that gets scrutinized and worked on in the future.

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Reported by GamesIndustry, the suit was filed on January 4 in US District Courts for the Central District of California, and covers complaints of trafficking in circumvention devices, intentional interference with contractual relations, and unfair competition.

EngineOwning is a Germany-Based website which deals in sales and distribution of malicious software for various popular multiplayer online games, particularly the Call of Duty titles. EngineOwning provides cheats ranging from auto-aiming, to wallhacks among others and provides them at a price ranging from €4.49 for three days to €139.99 for 90 days.

Activision is seeking for “exemplary and punitive damages.” Additionally, the lawsuit reads: “Because the COD games are so popular, unscrupulous individuals and companies such as [EngineOwning] frequently seek to exploit the games for their own personal gain and profit by selling cheats, hacks, and other malicious software, knowing full well that they are ruining the experience for other players and harming Activision.”

When it comes to banning hackers and cheaters from the games, Activision is pretty swift. As of around August 2021, the company has banned the Call of Duty accounts of approximately 500,000 cheaters (and counting). Now it is time to wait and see whether this will help in reducing the health of the Call of Duty games.

The studio behind the incredibly successful free-to-play battle royale has had a big change of fate, with Warzone‘s ballooning success making it a valued standalone studio in the eyes of Activision. Raven has previously assumed the role of a support studio for a decade now, even supporting Treyarch on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

Far Cry 6 game director Ted Timmins has now assumed the role of creative director for Warzone, and other industry veterans have also taken up jobs within the studio. Crash Bandicoot 4 developer Toys for Bob has now been reduced to a support studio for oiling the Warzone machine.

The latest game to do so, it seems, is Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. As demonstrated in a video by YouTube user Paulo, the first person shooter has implemented the DualSense’s adaptive triggers. Sadly, it doesn’t seem like haptic feedback is supported in the game on PC just yet.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has become the third major game to add support for the DualSense’s features on PC. Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition was the first to do so in May, and was followed just earlier this month by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

In somewhat related news, Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently praised Sony for its work on the DualSense, and suggested that Microsoft might implement similar features in future revisions of the Xbox controller. Read more on that through here.