It has been announced by Activision Blizzard that, after several months of speculation, this year’s Call of Duty will indeed be a direct follow-up to the 2019 reboot of Modern Warefare. In addition, it will be developed in tandem with a new Warzone release with both being “designed together from the ground up.”
Fans of the Call of Duty battle royale experience can expect an “all-new playspace and a new sandbox mode” for Warzone 2, with both games being developed by Infinity ward, being powered using a new engine. Infinity Ward developed the 2019 Modern Warfare, along with Warzone, both of which went on to be among the most successful Call of Duty IPs.
This news was released as part of a community update that also featured news on the upcoming Season 2 planned for Call of Duty: Vanguard along with Warzone. As part of this, Activision Blizzard promises more than 30 improvements to be implemented ahead of season 2’s launch on February 14th.
These announcements come amid questions concerning the future of the franchise, with Microsoft recently announcing plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion dollars. Questions were initially raised by many regarding whether the game would remain on other platforms like PlayStation following this acquisition, With Microsoft recently stating they plan to keep it multiplatform even after the contractual agreements in place between Sony and Activision Blizzard expire. Phil Spencer has also expressed interest in porting the game to Nintendo Platforms as well.
Additionally, Raven Software, a support team in the Call of Duty ecosystem went on strike following several firings last year. Their QA department recently formed a union in the way of this, something Activision Blizzard’s current board has shown no interest in acknowledging. It remains to be seen if under Microsoft this union will find better support.
This announcement should serve as welcomed news for the Warzone faithful, with the game having suffered from a multitude of bugs, as well as rampant cheating. This can serve as an opportunity to clear the slate and address these issues as they build this new experience, which hopefully they.
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A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.
According to SteamDB.
An announcement trailer was also released.