A new report has emerged that claims Call of Duty will skip a release in 2023, the first time it will miss a year since 2005.
According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, sources from Activision are saying that Call of Duty will miss a release in 2023. The sources say that Activision executives made the decisions “after a recent entry in the series failed to meet expectations”.
This is likely to be Call of Duty: Vanguard, which saw massively lower sales than Call of Duty: Cold War. It’s believed that part of the decision is also because the company is introducing new versions too quickly. But the decision is apparently unrelated to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.
Also noted in the report is that Activision is working on other projects to fill the gap. There is still a Call of Duty planned for release this year. The plan is to have a “steady stream of additional content,” as well as a new, free-to-play online title next year. Treyarch will apparently assist on the free-to-play title.
“We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg. “We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right.”
A Call of Duty game has been released every year since 2005, almost two decades ago. This will certainly be a massive change for the series. And it could be the start of more of a focus on live-service games.
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Featured Image Credit: Activision