Activision has confirmed what energy drinks already knew: this year’s Call of Duty game is Modern Warfare 3 (stylised as Modern Warfare III), and that it’s coming out on 10th November 2023.
The teaser trailer is filled with little details that series fans can pick on, and the game is almost certain to pick up the narrative threads from the end of Modern Warfare II, as this rebooted series remixes plot beats from the original Modern Warfare series. Yeah, it definitely seems like Makarov is making his return in this one and there’s the voice over warning to “Never bury your enemies alive.”
Modern Warfare III looks to be in development with Sledgehammer Games taking the lead – the studio changed their logo on Twitter alongside the announcement and this has been widely reported. It’s a curious twist of fate, as Sledgehammer developed the single player for the original Modern Warfare 3 after the acrimonious fallout between Infinity Ward’s founders and Activision way back when.
Reports had been that the original plan from Activision was for Modern Warfare II to have a two year lifespan, supported heavily by live service seasonal updates, and Sledgehammer was developing a smaller narrative DLC expansion as part of this. However, this soon morphed into being a full game, with the full network of Call of Duty studios falling in to support with a renewed suite of multiplayer options to try and beef this up into a full COD game release.
However, don’t expect a totally fresh start on this one. As we’ve seen in recent years, there’s often been continuity from one Call of Duty to the next, primarily through the Warzone battle royale game and the many progression unlocks that it ties into. We’re yet to see official confirmation, but it does seem that unlocked Modern Warfare 2 operators, weapons and bundles will carry forward into this year’s game.
Looking at the bigger picture, there’s maybe some concerns for Call of Duty as a whole. Again, Activision had planned for COD to skip a full game release this year, and we’ve seen the franchise bouncing from one development crisis to another in recent years. Infinity Ward’s Infinite Warfare was so widely hated upon in 2016 that it surely led to the decision to reboot Modern Warfare a few years later. At least they were able to stick with the three year development cycle, while Treyarch first had to can the single player for Black Ops 4 in 2018 and replace it with a battle royale mode, and then step in to take creative control of the 2020 game from Sledgehammer and Raven, morphing what they were making into Black Ops Cold War while Sledgehammer shifted to working on the WW2 era Vanguard for 2021, which failed to live up to Activision’s sales expectations. Sledgehammer are now lead on a new full game within a two year span as well.
How long can they keep this up before the wheels come off? Will Microsoft do anything to change this pattern after acquiring Activision Blizzard? We’ll wait and see, but it definitely seems that the collection of studios behind Call of Duty need more breathing room and a break from the yearly release cycle grind.
Looking back on last year’s game, Nick said in our Modern Warfare 2 review: “There’s some rough edges to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II that keep it from hitting the heights of the 2019 Modern Warfare, though most of its flaws can and will be fixed or improved through patches. Still, there’s an action-packed story to play through, plenty of multiplayer and a light co-op mode, and the promise of more in future. With Warzone 2.0 just around the corner, the future is certainly bright for Modern Warfare 2.”
