Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and new Warzone are coming this year
A sequel to 2019 reboot
Information started to slip out this week about the next iteration of Call Of Duty. Now it's confirmed: Infinity Ward are making Modern Warfare 2 for release later this year alongside a "new Warzone experience." Modern Warfare 2 will be a sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare reboot, and both it and the new Warzone will run on a new engine.
The details, scant as they are, were given in a short blog post on the Call Of Duty site.
- This year’s Call of Duty is a sequel to Modern Warfare® 2019.
- The new game and a new Warzone experience are designed together from the ground-up.
- Expect a massive evolution of Battle Royale with all-new playspace and a new sandbox mode.
- A new engine powers both the new Call of Duty game release and Warzone.
- Development on both the new Call of Duty and the Warzone experience is being led by Infinity Ward.
The Call Of Duty Twitter account also announced the news.
Last year's Call Of Duty: Vanguard failed to meet sales expectations. 2019's Modern Warfare sold 30 million copies, meanwhile. It was a reboot of the original Modern Warfare from 2007, led by original Call Of Duty creators Infinity Ward, and it was also the first iteration to receive a post-launch update called Warzone. Warzone, the series' take on battle royale, has proved enormous popular, albeit hampered by problems with cheaters.
The original Modern Warfare 2 caused controversy with its "No Russian" mission, in which the player character takes part in a massacre of civilians at an airport. 2019's Modern Warfare reboot re-uses a lot of elements from the original game, including some characters, but it's different enough that Infinity Ward would presumably have no reason to do the same thing again. No Russian is rubbish, by the way.
This announcement is light on detail, but the rest of the post details plans for Warzone season 2, including focusing on "quality of life" features.
Call Of Duty publishers Activision Blizzard remain under a cloud of allegations that they have a culture of sexual harassment and discrimination. They're also in the process of being bought by Microsoft for $69 billion, assuming the deal is approved by regulators.