Call of Duty has, for 17 years, been one of the most anticipated parts of the video game calendar. Since Call of Duty 2 released in 2005, a new game in the franchise has dropped every year. Even when the series saw its lowest lows and highest highs, it never missed a year without some kind of new title. To put that into perspective, Call of Duty has been released annually through three console generations, four United States presidents, and the rise of an entirely different internet.
If a report from Bloomberg is correct, though, this streak of games is going to come to an end in 2023. Jason Schreier is reporting that the Call of Duty game originally scheduled for 2023 has been delayed due to the poor performance and response to a recent title. The belief is that games are being released too quickly and it’s impacting the quality of the series.
Activision Blizzard Inc. will delay a Call of Duty game that had been planned for next year, the first time the franchise will be without an annual mainline release in nearly two decades, according to people familiar with the plan.
The company is pushing off the release after a recent entry in the series failed to meet expectations, leading some executives to believe that they’re introducing new versions too rapidly, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to discuss the deliberations. The decision was not related to Activision’s agreement to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $69 billion, the people said.
It is true that the two most recent Call of Duty games were not received favorably, but it’s still very surprising to see Activision consider this path considering how important Call of Duty has always been to its calendar. We know from previous reports that one of the upcoming Call of Duty games is expected to be a sequel of some kind to Warzone and that the 2022 release will be a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare, so it seems like they already have the next few games planned out, and its possible that seeing the scope of these games has made it clear that a delay is already necessary.