It’s been a long time coming but we may be close to an official announcement and reveal of this year’s Call of Duty.
As we’ve entered into August, it’s been the longest time into a year that we’ve had to wait for a new Call of Duty reveal, although the delay is likely tied to the rumours of developer changes mid-development.
Back in May we first heard about sudden changes to the three-pronged Call of Duty developer cycle, with Treyarch, developer of 2018’s Black Ops 4, set to take over development of Call of Duty 2020, with Sledgehammer Games (Call of Duty: WW2) and Raven to offer support.
Reportedly, Sledgehammer and Raven had teamed up for Call of Duty 2020, with the Cold War acting as the base narrative driver for the game. As it stands, however, that won’t come to fruition next year, and Black Ops 5 — or at least a Black Ops-related game — looks to be the most obvious release in 2020.
Further, the Sledgehammer game appears to have been ditched completely, with both Raven and Sledgehammer expected to help Treyarch on Black Ops 5, which will now contain its own Cold War-set single player campaign.
Back in February, LongSensation on Twitter, a known Call of Duty leaker, said that Call of Duty 2020 will have one of two names: Black Ops, likely to be a reboot, or Black Ops 5, a straight-up sequel.
They also say that the game will be set during the Cold War, spans the entire 40+ years of the conflict, and will include both Vietnam and Korean Wars.
Turns out they were likely right about at least one of those things.
Last week, some Xbox One users could download a file called “The Red Door”, which is an obvious reference to the Cold War.
Once downloaded, the file actually lists itself as “Call of Duty: Black Ops CIA“. When the file is booted up, it shows the title card of “Call of Duty: Black Ops“, before crashing back to the console dashboard.
All signs point to that being a leaked pre-Alpha file of the game, ahead of the “fairly soon” reveal of Call of Duty 2020.
In a call with investors overnight, Call of Duty publisher, Activision, detailed that this year’s entry will be developed by Treyarch and Raven Software. Interestingly, Sledgehammer Games is nowhere to be seen.
The game was said to be in an openly playable state and currently being tested internally within Activision.
Activision said the reveal will be coming “soon”.
“The game looks incredible right now and, internally, people are having a ton of fun playing across its campaign mode as well as the online mode the developers are very well known for,” the publisher said.
In terms of when we can expect to hear something? “I suspect you’ll be hearing more about this fairly soon,” it was teased.
Fingers crossed for an announcement very soon.
