Should Call of Duty switch to a two-year cycle, the question arises whether all previous studios will still work on their own Call of Duty titles. Will Sledgehammer still develop CoD in the future?
I'm sure you've all heard, Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard. Of course, this also means that Call of Duty's future is in the hands of Phil Spencer. There have been rumors for quite some time that with this takeover, the annual releases will finally be discontinued and Call of Duty will only be released every two years. And this raises the question, whether all three major studios are still going to be needed...
Will Sledgehammer Games Remain A Call of Duty studio?
Short answer: yes. While it has been speculated that with the move to a two-year cycle, some studios, including Sledgehammer, may leave the CoD series to develop other games, according to our favorite leaker Tom Henderson, Sledgehammer has already begun work on another CoD.
According to Call of Duty: Vanguard writer Sam Maggs, it could be a sequel to the current CoD: Vanguard. In an interview with VGC, she said:
And so we came into this being like, ‘who could be our flagship CoD characters?’ because we want to make Vanguard 2 and Vanguard 3, because we have two more stories that we really want to tell with these characters.
Whether there will ever be a Vanguard 2, however, is not yet certain, since the current game did not sell very well. Nevertheless, Sledgehammer Games will probably continue to work on CoD titles in the future.
Call of Duty Moves To A Two-Year Cycle
If Call of Duty is only going to be released every two years in the future, then according to some rumors, we already know what that might look like. Modern Warfare II will be released this year, but other premium titles would only follow two years later. According to leaks, the schedule would look something like this:
- 2022 – Infinity Ward (MWII)
- 2024 – Treyarch
- 2026 – Sledgehammer Games
- 2028 – Infinity Ward
But don't worry, this doesn't mean that we won't get any new content for two years. The individual games will simply be getting more seasons and in-game content, and Warzone 2 will also be released in 2023. In addition, there will be new content for CoD: Mobile and Warzone Mobile is already being worked on as well. And if you still need more CoD, there will be further remasters of old CoD titles between the premium releases.
So yes, Sledegehammer Games will continue to make Call of Duty and yes, despite a two-year cycle, we still get a bunch of Call of Duty content.