Call Of Duty Is Skipping A Year For The First Time In Two Decades

Call Of Duty will be taking a hard-earned year off for the first time in nearly two decades.

According to a new report from Bloomberg, the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty game that was originally planned for 2023 has been quietly pushed back to 2024. This will mark the first time since 2004 that a mainline Call Of Duty has taken a year out.

Infinity Ward's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare II is still on track to release this year, however. It's also rumoured that a full free-to-play sequel to Call Of Duty: Warzone will launch in 2023 to fill the gap left by Treyarch's instalment. Indeed, Bloomberg's report mentions that Activision is planning a "new free-to-play online" for next year, which is almost certainly Warzone 2.

The new battle royale is apparently being developed primarily by Infinity Ward, and will have some kind of "sandbox" mode. The report also claims that Modern Warfare II will receive an extra year of dedicated post-launch content, so Call Of Duty fans are hardly going to go hungry in 2023.

Activision has since responded to Bloomberg's report with a statement that doesn't really contradict anything that was shared.

"We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond," the publisher said. "Reports of anything otherwise are incorrect. We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right."

According to Bloomberg's sources, one of the main factors behind the decision to delay Call Of Duty 2023 was the disappointing sales of Call Of Duty: Vanguard. It's also been rumoured this is why Infinity Ward's new game was announced earlier than usual.

Whatever the case, this could end up being a great thing for Call Of Duty. According to other recent reports, a number of top developers at Activision have been calling on the publisher to move away from the annual release schedule for some time.