Call of Duty: Vanguard is the most recent Call of Duty game, developed by Sledgehammer Games and released in late 2021. Though it hasn't yet been formally announced, 2022's Call of Duty is widely rumored and accepted to be Modern Warfare II by Infinity Ward. Beyond this, though, Treyarch is hard at work on their next project after Black Ops Cold War: 2023's Call of Duty. In this article, we'll talk about everything we know so far about Treyarch's next Call of Duty game.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II Explained
In 2007, Infinity Ward released Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and in 2009, they released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is perhaps to this day the most beloved game in the franchise. Modern Warfare 3 came out in 2011 and ended the Modern Warfare subseries for Infinity Ward. The team then went on to bring Call of Duty to space and the far future.
Infinity Ward returned to the Modern Warfare series in 2019, rebooting it with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare and spiritual reimagining of Modern Warfare 2 is the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. This is 2022's Call of Duty.
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This game will build upon the mechanics, world, and gunplay of Modern Warfare 2019, which is the game that rebooted modern Call of Duty and introduced Warzone to the world. This game will build upon this, refining what Modern Warfare did and how it felt rather than majorly departing from any of it.
Since Sledgehammer Games' Call of Duty: Vanguard also uses the Modern Warfare engine, gunplay, and movement, Modern Warfare II won't feel like a majorly different game than every other Call of Duty game in recent memory other than Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Think evolution and not revolution.
Treyarch's Next Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Spiritual Successor?
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was a soft reboot of the Black Ops subseries of Call of Duty much like Modern Warfare was a soft reboot of the Modern Warfare subseries. Modern Warfare 2019 wasn't just a reboot of the subseries, though, it was a reboot of the original 2007 game.
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The 2019 game tried to bring shooters back to their modern roots while refining and innovating along the way, taking risks, and finding both success and failure. This is the same story for the 2007 game. In 2009, that story continued when the original Modern Warfare 2 was released.
Modern Warfare 2 was the ultimate evolution of Modern Warfare. It took everything the game was good at and did it bigger and better. It refined what brought Modern Warfare great and so many other shooters of the time tried to recreate.
2022's Call of Duty, Modern Warfare II, is going to do what Modern Warfare 2 did for Modern Warfare to Modern Warfare 2019. It's going to build on Modern Warfare 2019 while reimagining Modern Warfare 2.
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This style of spiritual succession/soft rebooting has been reflected with Treyarch's Black Ops Cold War, a soft reboot of 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops. And there's no reason that Treyarch won't continue this like Infinity Ward is, rebooting Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 as their next project.
The leaks about Treyarch's next project line up with the above speculation. Treyarch's 2023 project is supposed to be set in the near future, similar to Black Ops 2 or Battlefield 2042, and is another boots-on-the-ground game like Black Ops Cold War and as opposed to earlier Call of Duty games like Black Ops 4.
Over the course of the life cycle of Black Ops Cold War, six maps from Black Ops 2 were remastered and rereleased: Express, Hijacked, Raid, Rush, Slums, Standoff. Many have speculated so many maps were brought in from a certain era of Call of Duty, the Black Ops 2 era, to try and get fans ready for a game like Black Ops 2, if not a straight-up remake.
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Official Release Date & Formal Announcement of a New Black Ops Game
Though there isn't much reason to suspect that Treyarch has some kind of radical departure in store for Call of Duty, we can't expect anything in the form of official details about the project to come out for a while. 2022's Call of Duty, Modern Warfare II, hasn't been formally unveiled and spoken about just it, as Call of Duty: Vanguard is currently the main focus of the franchise.
Accordingly, we'll have to wait until Modern Warfare II is announced and released before we can expect to hear anything beyond leaks and rumors about Treyarch's next project, Call of Duty 2023. However, leaks in the world of Call of Duty do often turn out true.
Keep an eye out for the latest leaks and rumors, and hold tight. More information will come about Treyarch's next project as time passes, especially as this year's Call of Duty is revealed and actually releases.
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