Call of Duty: Black Ops 5 will roll out next year, as Black Ops 4 developer Treyarch takes over the project from Raven and Sledgehammer.
Kotaku, citing three sources, reported the “major upheaval” for the 2020 Call of Duty. The massively popular shooter franchise has followed a three-year cycle among Activision’s lead studios since 2012, with Sledgehammer behind 2017’s Call of Duty: WWII, Treyarch behind 2018’s Black Ops 4, and Infinity Ward behind this year’s entry.
Activision switched things up for the 2020 Call of Duty, with support studio Raven to lead the project alongside Sledgehammer for a game that is set during the Cold War. However, according to Kotaku, plans have changed, with Treyarch now in charge for Black Ops 5.
Raven and Sledgehammer will still be on the project, but will serve as support studios to Treyarch. The work that they have done on a single-player story mode will be incorporated into Black Ops 5, which signals a turnaround as Black Ops 4 lacked a campaign mode.
One of the reasons behind the switch of studios, according to two sources, is that the employees of Sledgehammer and Raven frequently got into arguments over the past year regarding the development of the 2020 Call of Duty. The situation was described as “a mess,” but they will still have to work together to support Treyarch for Black Ops 5.
Before Black Ops 5, however, is this year’s Call of Duty. Activision will reportedly reveal the the game before June 30, though it is widely expected to be a new Modern Warfare. It is Infinity Ward’s turn this year, and since the studio created Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2, and teamed up with Sledgehammer for Modern Warfare 3, there is a good chance that Modern Warfare 4 is on the way. It remains to be seen whether the announcement will be made at E3 2019 though.
Call of Duty will also be arriving to iOS and Android this year with Call of Duty: Mobile. Pre-registration is now open in North America, but there is no word yet on when beta testing will start in the U.S.
It is a good time to be a Call of Duty fan, and despite internal turmoil, gamers may still look forward to more entries for the long-running series.
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