Call of Duty reportedly skipping annual release next year

UPDATE 24/2/22: Activision has responded to this week’s report that Call of Duty will skip its mainline entry in 2023.

There’s no denial of the details of Bloomberg’s reporting, which also claimed that a new free-to-play Call of Duty was in the works. Treyarch, whose game is now expected in 2024, is said to be assisting development on that.

“We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond,” an Activision spokesperson said in a statement passed to Eurogamer. “Reports of anything otherwise are incorrect. We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right.”

ORIGINAL STORY 22/2/22: Call of Duty reportedly won’t be getting a new mainline series entry in 2023, marking the first time in just under two decades the core series hasn’t had an annual release.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard reports Activision has been considering ditching Call of Duty’s yearly release schedule, but now Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claims it’s a done deal, citing sources saying Activision executives made the decision to delay next year’s mainline title “after a recent entry in the series failed to meet expectations”.