Activision says Warzone will play prominent role in next Call of Duty launch

By Don Reisinger Published April 25, 2023

Activision has confirmed that it has a new entrant in the Call of Duty franchise planned for this year. But it may announce the new game in a decidedly different way.

Recommended Videos

Speaking to investors on an earnings call on Tuesday, August 4, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick suggested the company may ultimately unveil the next Call of Duty game, believed to be known as Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, inside its free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone environment.

“To your initial point that you’re talking about why you were waiting for such a long time … it’s Warzone I think that’s caused us to rethink how, when, and even where we reveal our upcoming title,” Kotick said in response to an analyst question on why Activision hasn’t announced its new Call of Duty game yet. “We can’t wait to share it with the community, and we think it’s going to be very different and more engaging than anything that we’ve ever done before.”

Kotick spent considerable time talking about Warzone and its impact on the company during the earnings call. He said the title has attracted more than 75 million players since the game launched in March and has been a “great platform” for promoting Activision initiatives.

“Starting with marketing, it’s definitely had an impact there and how we think about marketing in this new world,” Kotick said.

Activision’s President Rob Kostich also chimed in on Warzone’s importance to both Activision’s broader business and the Call of Duty franchise, saying he expects Warzone to factory heavily in the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War title.

“There will be a very tight integration between the two,” Kostich said of Warzone and Black Ops. “Modern Warfare and Warzone are obviously very tightly connected, and I think that’s really important for the player base.”

Despite all their talk about the next Call of Duty game and how it will be integrated with Warzone, Activision’s executives stopped short of announcing a launch date, official name, or game details. But with all signs pointing to a late-2020 launch on both current- and next-generation hardware, it may not be long before Activision unveils what it has planned for its next installment.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Don Reisinger is a freelance technology, video game, and entertainment journalist. He has been writing about the world of…

Gaming

All Call of Duty games in order, by release date and chronologically

e3 2021 missing games call of duty

Call of Duty is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. The original Call of Duty set a new standard for first-person shooters, the series' online multiplayer work has been a must-play for gamers for nearly two decades, and Warzone has been one of the top battle royale experiences of late.

The series has covered a lot of warfare, from World War II to futuristic fictional wars in 2187, but never in any set order. Players have been bounced around from era to era with each annual COD release and even revisited the same conflicts multiple times from different perspectives through direct sequels and remakes.

Gaming

Is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

A soldier crouching with his eyes blacked out.

When Microsoft announced that it was acquiring Activision, the big question on everyone's mind was what would happen with Call of Duty. Well, it took months of legal battles, but the deal finally went through and the first CoD game to release officially under Microsoft is Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Xbox has held firm to its commitment to put all of its first-party titles onto Game Pass on day one for all its subscribers, but is it honoring that deal for the biggest game of the year? We know it isn't an Xbox exclusive and is still cross-platform, after all. If you have an Xbox and a subscription to Game Pass, you might not need to spend any money on Black Ops 6, but only if you meet one specific requirement.
Is Black Ops 6 on Game Pass?

The short answer is yes, Black Ops 6 is on Game Pass, but not at every tier. Prior to Black Ops 6 launching, Xbox restructured its Game Pass tiers a bit with new pricing and benefits. What you need to know is that you now need to either be a PC Game Pass or Game Pass Ultimate subscriber to get access to any first-party day-one titles.

Gaming

You might want to wait a bit to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Steam

A player runs in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 multiplayer.

It's Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launch day, which means potentially millions of players are hopping into the new single-player campaign, the updated multiplayer mode, and Zombies. While posts online about the performance of the game seem to be minimal, there have been reported issues on PC, specifically via Steam.

It's been a common story lately about players being mad at third-party launchers on Steam, and that remains the case for Black Ops 6. Call of Duty's is called Call of Duty HQ (COD HQ), and it's a hub for players to manage their game installs, whether they want to only download certain game modes or launch a specific game. It seems as if players can only switch between modes through the launcher and have to go through multiple menus to boot the game up. In the worst cases, they can't launch the game at all.