Entertainment

Next Call of Duty to be new sub-franchise, Activision says

Vince MaglayaPublished 4m ago2 min readBased on 2 sources
Next Call of Duty to be new sub-franchise, Activision says
Photo by w:User:Coolcaesar / CC BY-SA 3.0

Next year's Call of Duty will start fresh, outside Modern Warfare and Black Ops.

Activision confirmed the plan in an interview with The Game Business, saying a future Call of Duty title will launch as a new sub-franchise. A sub-series, in this case, means a separate storyline and cast under the wider Call of Duty name. Eurogamer reported the comments on 19 October 2026.

Activision chief marketing officer Tyler Bahl said groundwork for the new branch has already been laid. He did not give a title, setting or release date. This year's entry is Modern Warfare 4.

The decision breaks a recent pattern. Activision released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2022 followed by Modern Warfare 3 in 2023, then Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in 2024 followed by Black Ops 7 in 2025. The publisher has now said it will no longer release two back-to-back games from the Modern Warfare or Black Ops lines.

Sledgehammer Games, which developed 2021's Call of Duty: Vanguard, is understood to be developing next year's game. Vanguard was the last Call of Duty to launch as a new sub-franchise rather than a sequel.

The change follows a difficult run. The game preceding Modern Warfare 4 was Black Ops 7. In Europe, its launch sales were 50% below the previous year's title, and in the United States it finished the year at No. 5, the lowest ranking for a Call of Duty game since 2008's World at War. The Game Business reported Battlefield 6 was the best-selling shooter of 2025, ending a Call of Duty run at the top stretching back to the mid-2000s.

Player numbers tell a similar story. According to Ampere, Call of Duty's monthly player count was routinely around 40 million in 2024 and in the mid-20 million range in 2026. PlayStation ports of 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops and 2012's Black Ops 2 later helped return the franchise player count to near 40 million, according to Ampere.

For players, this means a reset. A new name brings new characters, weapons and maps, without the baggage of an ongoing saga. It is a familiar routine for this long-running favourite, and a test of whether a fresh start can rebuild momentum.

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