Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Activision Blizzard plans mobile Warcraft, next Call of Duty

Activision Blizzard plans to release a new Call of Duty game and mobile Warcraft game in 2022, according to a February 2022 financial results report.

As part of that report, the company went over what investors could expect from Activision, Blizzard, and King in 2022. Notably, a Warcraft game for mobile phones is officially teased for the first time: “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including new experiences in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, and getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.”

We’ve yet to learn the title of this game or see it in action. It’ll be the first Warcraft game released since the disappointing Warcraft 3: Reforged in 2020, and the second to hit iOS and Android, following Hearthstone

In the same report, Activision discussed Call of Duty in great detail. While the teased Call of Duty game is still untitled, this financial results report and a tweet from Infinity Ward heavily suggest that it’s Modern Warfare 2. “Development on this year’s premium and Warzone experiences is being led by Activision’s renowned Infinity Ward studio,” the results state. “The team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting.” Shortly afterward, Infinity Ward tweeted, “A new generation of Call of Duty is coming soon. Stay frosty.”

A new generation of Call of Duty is coming soon.

Stay frosty.

— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) February 3, 2022

“Stay frosty” is an iconic line of John “Soap” MacTavish, a classic Modern Warfare character that was only teased in the 2019 reboot. Considering that 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is widely regarded as the series’ best game in recent memory, it’s not a surprise that the Modern Warfare 2 rumors are true. A report from Bloomberg claims that this game will still release on PlayStation consoles, which makes sense as the Microsoft acquisition isn’t expected to be complete until June 30, 2022.

Despite the acquisition being in progress, developers fighting to unionize, and the delay of Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV, this financial results report confirms that we can still expect new games from Activision Blizzard in 2022.

Tomas Franzese
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
Warcraft and Diablo devs reveal the focus of Phil Spencer’s Blizzard visit
Phil Spencer at BlizzCon 2023. He's presenting on a stage in a black jacket.

Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, and shortly thereafter, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed on the Official Xbox Podcast that he was going to visit Activision Blizzard studios in the coming weeks. Spencer did so prior to BlizzCon 2023, where he also ended up making an appearance during the Opening Ceremony to reaffirm Xbox's commitment to support all of Blizzard's major franchises. To get a better idea of what Spencer's studio visit and BlizzCon appearance felt like for Blizzard developers, we asked John Hight, Warcraft franchise general manager, and Rod Fergusson, Diablo general manager, about the experience.

"They actually came out a couple of weeks ago, Phil and a lot of his leadership team. What was nice about it was we had prepared all of these PowerPoints and stuff, but they just wanted to meet the teams," Hight told Digital Trends. "They had lunch out in our patio, the cafe. We had hundreds of employees and Phil made himself available just to talk to people. He just wanted to see some of the games and meet some of the people, so we gave him a demo of one of the areas in The War Within for a while, and then we had [game designer] Tom [Chilton] demo Warcraft Rumble. It was fun because we started to go through introductions and I said ‘Clearly you’re having fun playing the game, you can tune out and just play that.' They’ve been very supportive. I think they’re excited by the fact that, especially with Warcraft, we have a diversity of games and platforms that we’re building for.”

Read more
Everything announced at BlizzCon 2023: Diablo 4 DLC, Cataclysm Classic, and more
A dragon flies through the sky in World of Warcraft Catclysm Classic.

 

For the first time since 2019, BlizzCon has returned to its traditional form. While Blizzard's convention held an online ceremony in 2021, it has not been hosted as an in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020. That changed today with the 2023 edition, which saw fans returning to the Anaheim Convention Center to get all the news on the studio's games.

Read more
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III trailer teases a No Russian reimagining
No Russian's reimagining in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III

Activision Blizzard has fully pulled back the curtain on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III following an in-game event in its predecessor. This came alongside new gameplay that concludes by teasing a rebooted version of the series' infamous No Russian mission.
The gameplay trailer focuses on the campaign missions, which got a lot more detail in a post on the game's website. It affirms that the game follows Task Force 141 as they take on Vladimir Makarov and will feature some "Open Combat Missions" that give players multiple ways to complete objectives. The gameplay seems to mainly feature a stealthy run to one of these levels. Of course, the trailer's most shocking moment comes at the end.
Gameplay Reveal Trailer | Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
We see Makarov text someone "No Russian," before they pull out a gun on a crowded plane. If you don't remember, No Russian was one of the original Modern Warfare II's most infamous missions, as it had players partake in a mass shooting terrorist attack at an airport with Russians. The level has influenced the tone of this rebooted Modern Warfare series, and it now looks like Modern Warfare III is set to reimagine this mission in some way, following up the Modern Warfare II post-credit scene that referenced it.

While the trailer focused on the campaign mainly, that post confirmed a lot of new info on multiplayer and Modern Warfare Zombies too. Its multiplayer features all 16 launch maps from 2009's Modern Warfare II, two larger Battle maps for Ground War and Invasion, and an even bigger War map for the return of the War Mode introduced in Call of Duty: WWII. Map voting returns, so you can have a say in where you want to play a match.  Finally, Activision says Modern Warfare Zombies takes place in a new open world where players will fight Dark Aether Zombies, complete missions, and incorporate Extraction game elements. 
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III launches on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on November 10.

Read more