Will Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard impact the new Call of Duty?įollowing the announcement of Microsoft's planned $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, there was uncertainty over what the takeover will mean for Call of Duty 2022 and for the series as a whole, with the main question being: will future Call of Duty games come to PlayStation? Good news for PlayStation players: it's looking like they will for the foreseeable future. The new Call of Duty's release on PlayStation will come as a relief to many, following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision - but it looks like the series will stay multi-platform for the foreseeable future (more on this below).
Whether that indicates an intention to leave behind older hardware generations isn't clear, although at the moment it looks sort of unlikely given large swathes of the install base are likely to be on last-gen hardware when the release rolls around, particularly as console stock shortages are still ongoing. Infinity Ward did tweet (opens in new tab) that "a new generation" of Call of Duty is coming.
Whether it will also land on PS4 and Xbox One is less certain. It's almost certain that we'll see Call of Duty 2022 land on PS5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC. While we can only speculate on the new Call of Duty's release date, we can make more of an educated guess on what platforms the next entry in the series will release on. It's possible, however, that even if this is the plan now, the game could see a delay further down the line.
While this, of course, remains a rumor, Henderson is a notable Call of Duty leaker, having previously accurately leaked information on the series. Henderson claims that Call of Duty 2022 is releasing earlier due to Call of Duty: Vanguard's "poor sales performance". Adding some credence to this, in a recent report on a potential delay to 2023's Call of Duty release from Treyarch, Bloomberg (opens in new tab) said that this year's Call of Duty is "set to come out this fall". Typically, Call of Duty games release in November but prominent Call of Duty leaker Tom Henderson (opens in new tab) claims he has heard "rumblings" that the new Call of Duty will instead release one month earlier, in October, with a reveal taking place "in the summer" and a "big" Warzone update coming soon after. Currently, no release date or platforms have been confirmed for Call of Duty 2022 but sometime in 2022 feels like a safe bet.