According to reports, the new Call of Duty will be developed by Sledgehammer and be a complete standalone sequel to CoD Modern Warfare 2, which has been pushed back to 2024. Regardless, Call of Duty 2023 is starting to sound more interesting.
Activision Blizzard reiterated that the Call of Duty series would experience its "next full annual premium release" in 2023. Although this sounds like business as usual, compared to the yearly release schedule for CoD since Call of Duty 2, it was previously suggested that this would not be the case – rather than a fully-fledged game, Modern Warfare 2 was initially intended to serve as a significant expansion.
“Let me make this crystal clear,” said Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier back in November 2022. “Next year [2023] there will be a Modern Warfare II 'premium' (paid) expansion by Sledgehammer. The next game, by Treyarch, will be released in 2024.”
Insider Gaming has released a new report that suggests that the new CoD, although it will be released as a standalone game, will be released as a whole standalone game. Schreier has also provided further information, including a move in Treyarch's Call of Duty game for 2024.
"Treyarch's game was scheduled for 2023," Schreier writes. "They decided to postpone the release of Treyarch's game until 2024, in order to add more MW stuff from Sledgehammer."
However, it remains unclear what the new Call of Duty will be called, and whether it will be a complete Modern Warfare 3 or a continuation of MW2. One market regulator suggests that Activision Blizzard may have to sell the entire Call of Duty series in order to complete its acquisition by Microsoft.
If you want to maintain your lead in CoD multiplayer, you may want to look through all of the Modern Warfare 2 maps, which are changing with the launch of Season 2, or even the best Modern Warfare 2 SMGs, to give you an advantage in close-quarters battle.