Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the cash cows within Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The battle royale, along with annual entries in the series like Call of Duty: Vanguard, has been at the center of rumors as Microsoft looks at the future of the franchise. We could see a Warzone 2 sometime within 2023 once the acquisition is final.
Bloomberg is reporting that Microsoft has discussed releasing the next three Call of Duty games, as well as a new iteration of Warzone, on PlayStation. Its unknown if Microsoft will make the series exclusive to its own platforms beyond that.
Warzone 2 could be in development right now
The success of Call of Duty: Warzone has pushed Activision Blizzard and its studios towards treating Call of Duty more like a service, rather than an annual release. Warzone, which has been free-to-play since it launched in March 2020, has been playable on a single client even as new games like Black Ops Cold War and Vanguard have come out.
Warzone has also been plagued with issues since 2020. Game breaking bugs that turn players invisible, makes cars fly and let players climb inside walls have hounded the community constantly. A new iteration of the game could mean Raven Software (and the other studios that work on Warzone) are trying to clean up some of those problems by starting with a cleaner slate.
Studios behind other battle royales have opted to update their games rather than release sequels. Epic Games has added a new physics system that’s made Sharknado and death by tree possible within Fortnite’s third season. PUBG recently went free-to-play in hopes to capture some of the magic that propelled it to success in 2018.
Raven Software QA workers, who have played a major role in Warzone’s development, are currently trying to form a union. The Wisconsin-based studio could be restructuring its workforce to try and prevent its workers from organizing.
