Call Of Duty Poised To Ditch Yearly Releases

The Xbox and Activision Blizzard deal seems like the only thing in discussion in the gaming world right now, and it's for good reason. This isn't just good news for Xbox fans, but bad news for PlayStation fans, as the purchase is so monumental that it threatens the likelihood of many franchises coming to other consoles.

We've already reported that Phil Spencer has confirmed that Call of Duty isn't going to be an exclusive title for Xbox, causing a huge sigh of relief to spread across the industry. Still, that doesn't mean change isn't coming for the series. In fact, one of its most defining restrictions could be lifted.

Will Call Of Duty Could End Its Yearly Release Schedule?

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Coming shortly after the announcement of the Xbox deal, a decision could be made that would end the typical yearly Call of Duty titles - allowing the franchise to spend more time on producing quality titles.

According to a report from Bloomberg, "high-level employees" at Activision are in talks to steer away from the yearly release schedule for the franchise. This is a huge revelation for the series, as though many fans have wanted the series to take a breather so it can focus on quality, it will mean a lot of lost money for Activision Blizzard, and as a result, Xbox.

While the ink is still wet on the $69 billion acquisition, the industry is already alive with rumours and reports about what will change.  So, that begs the question - when could this new structure begin? Is it coming soon?

When Could Call Of Duty End Yearly Games?

If these conversations are real and the company is genuinely considering pushing back against yearly titles from Call of Duty, it's unlikely that this will affect the release date of the upcoming 2022 game - rumoured right now to be Modern Warfare II.

The game will be nearing a comfortable build by now, and as the title's plan didn't make for an extra year of development, it'd likely give Activision an awful lot of spare time in which they could simply have launched the game and made some money with it.

However, this does mean that the next entry after that could be the first to adopt this structure, and spend an extra year on development.

This new CoD formula, should it come to fruition, could vastly improve the franchise and let the franchise truly innovate once again. It's about time a Call of Duty truly blew our socks off again, and this could be the recipe that makes it happen.