Call of Duty’s 2023 game is delayed, says report

Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game won’t arrive in 2023. While this year’s Call of Duty is still on track, next year’s has been delayed and will not release in 2023, according to a report from Bloomberg. This year’s Call of Duty will be a new entry in the Modern Warfare franchise and is developed by Infinity Ward, Activision announced earlier this month. Infinity Ward will also develop a follow-up to Call of Duty: Warzone, one that is supposed to launch sometime in 2022. Bloomberg’s report says that this year’s Call of Duty release is planned to get a “steady stream of additional content.” Bloomberg also reports that there will be a “new free-to-play online title,” released next year, that Treyarch is helping develop. With Sledgehammer making last year’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, and this year’s entry being handled by Infinity Ward, the next Call of Duty entry will come from Treyarch and be part of the Black Ops series. After the delay, this new Black Ops game can be expected sometime in 2024.
The delay means 2023 will be the first year since 2004 that the series has not had a mainline entry. The Call of Duty franchise debuted on Windows PC in 2003, meaning that the series will also miss a major new release for its 20th anniversary. This delay, and Call of Duty 2023’s development, fashion comes at a time of massive change for Activision Blizzard. Earlier this year, it was announced that Microsoft will purchase the publisher for $68.7 billion. The deal is expected to be completed in Microsoft’s fiscal year 2023, which would likely make Treyarch’s next Call of Duty game the first under the Microsoft umbrella. According to Bloomberg’s report, however, the decision to push the game back was not related to the acquisition, but instead had to do with the fact that last year’s Call of Duty: Vanguard failed to meet expectations, leading to fears that the company may be publishing new iterations too quickly. Update: Activision has responded to Bloomberg’s report with a statement from a spokesperson: “We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond. Reports of anything otherwise are incorrect. We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right.”