(Insider Gaming) Sledgehammer Games next Call of Duty game will release in 2027
— Idle Sloth💙💛 (@IdleSloth84_) January 24, 2024
It’s a move that comes at an interesting time for Sledgehammer Games, as it it was also announced during the Town Hall that the studio would be the main developer for Activision’s 2027 Call of Duty… pic.twitter.com/fP251HuYQ0
The CoD release cycle is such a huge mess these days. There used to be a proper 3 studio rotation where each studio got 3 years per game, but now it is just all over the place:
- 2012- Treyarch- Black Ops 2
- 2013- Infinity Ward- Ghosts
- 2014- Sledgehammer- Advanced Warfare
- 2015- Treyarch- Black Ops 3
- 2016- Infinity Ward- Infinite Warfare
- 2017- Sledgehammer- WW2
- 2018- Treyarch- Black Ops 4
- 2019- Infinity Ward- Modern Warfare Reboot
- 2020- Treyarch- Black Ops Cold War
- 2021- Sledgehammer- Vanguard
- 2022- Infinity Ward- MW2
- 2023- Sledgehammer- MW3
- 2024- Treyarch- Black Ops Gulf War
- 2025- Treyarch- Black Ops (near future setting between Black Ops 2 and 3)
- 2026- Infinity Ward- Modern Warfare (4?)
- 2027- Sledgehammer
The issue began in late 2018 when Treyarch was overseeing Sledgehammer's development of Black Ops Cold War, they were unhappy with how the game was shaping up under Sledgehammer after it's first year of development under them and took the game from them to reboot it and finish it themselves, which threw a wrench into the whole dev cycle, Black Ops Cold War only got 2 years of development instead of 3 years as a result. Ever since then the 3 year, 3 studio rotation has been f-ed up, with Sledgehammer only being given 2 years to make MW3, and now Treyarch forced to release 2 Black Ops games back to back in 2024 and 2025.
Phil badly needs to step in at this point and take CoD off of a set yearly schedule, these studios need more than 3 years as it is, let alone 2 years in some cases, this strict yearly release schedule is keeping nearly every Activision studio working on CoD, keeping studios capable of individual development like Beenox, Toys for Bob, and High Moon stuck on CoD support when they could instead be working on other Activision IP's.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - on 24 January 2024
