Activision said that it will be planning to release “premium paid content” related to the Call of Duty series in 2023 following reports claiming no new Call of Duty game will release next year.
Bloomberg reported that mainline Call of Duty games are taking a year off in February 2023. If true, this will mark the first time in 18 years that Activision has ever skipped an annual release. Despite that, it appears that Activision still plans to release some premium Call of Duty content in 2023.”Across the Call of Duty ecosystem, the teams are well positioned to support these launches with substantial live operations while also continuing development of new premium content planned for 2023 and beyond,” Activision said in a statement in its Q2 2022 earnings report.
While it’s possible that the reports are wrong, Bloomberg writer Jason Schreier tweeted he expects the new premium content will be added to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II in 2023. That game is scheduled to release on October 28, while Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 is slated for this fall. The mostly scenario is that this “premium content” for Call of Duty is paid DLC, which was present in most games throughout the franchise but has been notably absent for some time.
Currently, the main form of DLC in Call of Duty games comes in the form of store bundles and battle passes. Battle passes differ from traditional DLCs in that they’re offered to the player with additional content within the game instead of as a separate purchase after the game’s release. The last Call of Duty game to have some semblance 0f a traditional DLC structure was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, but it’s possible that will change next year.
Activision reported that its second-quarter revenue and operating income dipped year-over-year due to low engagement with Call of Duty, but rose again in the first quarter. Engagement with the franchise is expected to rise even more with the release of Modern Warfare II and the Warzone 2.0 expansion later this year.
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