“We have an exciting lineup of premium and free Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond,” it reads. “Reports to the contrary are false. We look forward to sharing more details in due course.”

Update, February 23, 2022: The fact that no new Call of Duty from the main series will be released next year now seems to be a done deal.

As you can read below, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, such a decision has now been made. According to his sources, this is a reaction to the fact that “a recently released part of the series did not meet expectations.”

This almost certainly means Call of Duty Vanguard, whose sales dropped noticeably compared to Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War. According to the Bloomberg report, “some executives believe that [Activision] new versions are being released too quickly.”

The studio Treyarch, which was intended for the next Call of Duty, is now said to be supporting the development of a new free-to-play title to fill the gap thus created in 2023.

Currently, it is still unclear if this is the new “Warzone experience” that Activision last confirmed alongside this year’s Call of Duty from Infinity Ward.

According to Bloomberg, the decision is also said to be unrelated to Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Original news item dated January 21, 2022: We don’t really know it any other way anymore: every year a new Call of Duty is released. But that could possibly change.

According to reports, there are considerations to make changes to the previous release plans for the series.

No longer every year

As Bloomberg currently reports, “high-ranking employees” at Activision have discussed abandoning the annual release strategy.

A new Call of Duty has been released every year since 2005, and today several different development studios are working on the franchise.

These reports follow the planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft.

Currently, there is no indication that this will affect this year’s Call of Duty – rumored to be a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare – in any way. However, if the publisher decides to do so, the series could possibly take a break in 2023.

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A welcome change

Many gamers would appreciate it if the series could possibly take breaks between individual parts. In recent years, fans have repeatedly been disappointed that the focus shifted to the next game after just one year.

Meanwhile, such a change should also benefit the developers. Especially with Warzone, there were always problems integrating new content from Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard into the game.

If Call of Duty is no longer released annually, it would give them more breathing room and leeway to prepare appropriate changes. The declining sales of the most recently released Vanguard could make the publisher decide to give the series a break.

According to Bloomberg, Activision employees are “optimistic” about the Microsoft acquisition, even though there are “fears” about possible layoffs. Furthermore, they are “determined” to fight for better wages and more worker protection.