Is Sledgehammer Games Developing Call of Duty 2021?

Co D Riverside Heli
Call of Duty 2021 could be set in a fictional Third World War. (Credit: Activision)

According to some rumors, Sledgehammer Games will take on this year’s Call of Duty. Can we expect an Advanced Warfare 2, a World War 3 game, or perhaps something completely different?

Despite of Covid-19, and all of its associated struggles (even development studios are badly hit!), there is of course still a new Call of Duty every year. But who is actually developing Call of Duty 2021?

Infinity Ward was responsible for Modern Warfare, and the release and support of Warzone, but handed over responsibility for the latter in September of 2020. This would give them, if we assume a November 2021 release, 14 months to make a new Call of Duty. This seems more than unlikely!

Treyarch developed Black Ops Cold War, which didn’t release until November 2020, and will continue to support that for at least another year. Thus, they are also out of the development cycle for Call of Duty 2021.

Typically, Treyarch and Infinity Ward rotate on a two-year cycle, but Sledgehammer Games have developed two of their own Call of Duty games in the past, before they returned to a supporting role for Modern Warfare 2019. Both Advanced Warfare and WWII were developed by Sledgehammer Games, and according to leaker Tom Henderson, they will also develop Call of Duty 2021:

The Graphic shows a timeline of the last two years, and what the three studios have been working on during that time. According to this plan, Sledgehammer Games would have exactly the two years of development time normally estimated for a new Call of Duty.

Sounds plausible to us! So, the only question that remains is what kind of CoD we can expect in 2021. Both an Advanced Warfare 2 and a World War 3 would be conceivable, even if both parts were quite controversial and not popular with all players.

What setting would you like to see in CoD 2021? Future, present or past? Even though we didn’t like some mechanics in Advanced Warfare, we would love to see a future setting.

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Evan Williams

Australian gamer, musician, and journalist at EarlyGame. Currently living in Germany so no, I don't ride a Kangaroo to work. I am currently hard at work making our CoD and Rocket League pages the best on the internet. Lofty ambitions,...