Activision To Delay Next Year's Planned Call of Duty Game

Activision Blizzard will delay a Call of Duty game that had been planned for next year, the first time the franchise will be without an annual mainline release in nearly two decades, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the plan. From the report: The company is pushing off the release after a recent entry in the series failed to meet expectations, leading some executives to believe that they're introducing new versions too rapidly, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren't authorized to discuss the deliberations. The decision was not related to Activision's agreement to sell itself to Microsoft for $69 billion, the people said. Activision is working on other projects to fill the gap next year. A Call of Duty game set to come out this fall will receive a steady stream of additional content, and there will be a new, free-to-play online title next year, said the people. Treyarch, the Activision-owned studio working on the now-delayed game, will also help with the free-to-play title, the people said.

Good.

[Gravis Zero]

Honestly, they should delay it for at least two years so that they can actually finish the game without crunching everyone to death.

Re:

[Baconsmoke]

So, your head math tells you that either people have to be worked to mental and physical exhaustion for months or halve their pay? I know this sounds radical, but there are ways to not work people to death and continue to pay them what they're worth.

Re:

[Gravis Zero]

Found the corporate shill.

Just make it a subscription already

[jacks smirking reven]

I suppose Activision has the numbers to support their decisions but the yearly CoD cycle never made much sense to me for a franchise that seems so focused on multiplayer, like why would you split the playerbase up every year? Wouldn't it make more sense to charge a $60 a year subscription fee, keep things on the same engine and just add game modes, maps, weapons, time periods into a singular large platform service? I know the answer is "They've crunched the numbers and they make more money this way" but I

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

So emotional. So angry. Relax my friend, they're just words on a screen. I am sure Activision will see your response and reward you in kind for coming to their defense.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

"and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad." [twitter.com]

Re:

[fr]

It's a mess now with the free-to-play large map Warzone mode being a big hit.
They choose to merge weapons and operators (player skins/models) from the last 3 games into warzone.
So now you have modern, coldwar and ww2 weapons in the same game, with most of the ww2 weapons being the best. The newest stuff is always the best because then people are "encouraged" to buy the latest game for an competitive edge.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

Thank you for the insight. I assume the weapon balance is primarily just damage/accuracy/spread type adjustments? Are all weapons in CoD hitscan or are there actual bullet velocities?

Unfortunate to hear about pay-to-win tactics on a series that when I played the weapons seemed pretty preference based. I suppose Warzone has a whole host of different things to balance out versus the more close quarters style gameplay back when i was trying (and failing) to move up multiplayer ranks.

Bit Off More Than They Could Chew

[Arzaboa]

Let's take the last COD, Vanguard. They released it last year. It took 3 months to make it mostly playable. In the process, they broke warzone for most console players, which is the majority of their market.

The same thing happened the year before with COD Cold War.

If you spend any time on these games, its clear that this is the right decision. If they continue to release broken games, and always play catch up, they will move from the gold standard to the pinto standard, and while we like things blowing up and catching on fire in Call of Duty, I think we can all agree, we would like the engine and game of the new COD's to work for the entire 12 month life cycle.

--
"Nothing will work unless you do." - Maya Angelou

How can you tell the difference?

[ArchieBunker]

Isn't this just the same gave over and over again but with different skins?

Re: How can you tell the difference?

[madmatty]

Different engine for the next release has been confirmed already.

Delay of game - 5 yard penalty

[raymorris]

Isn't that a 5 yard penalty?

They're shooting themselves in the foot again

[madmatty]

Vanguard was the disaster, and they stopped release content for modern warfare 2019 and coldwar, so to push this new release back is going to be a nail in their coffin

Re:

[Surak_Prime]

Whose delay is this? The old management, or Microsoft? If the latter, I doubt they're shooting themselves in the foot, because here comes a phrase I didn't think I'd utter any time soon, but, Microsoft is actually better at putting completed and functional products out the door.

Sad story but true

[AndyKron]

I waited ten years for Duke Nukem Forever to come out and it sucked. I never recovered. I'm done gaming.

The process is clear

[reynolds_john]

The fact they issue statements like "we're working on projects to fill the gap" should be a clear indicator, if not already abundantly apparent, that larger studios follow XYZ marketing metrics and are told to just pump it out to make the quarterly bump. I feel really sorry for people working in the gaming industry - I feel like their hopes and dreams of creating really interesting, great games are probably dashed on a regular basis.