Rumors have been swirling lately about the future of the Call of Duty franchise, especially with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Warzone being such massive hits. Activision has already confirmed that a new Call of Duty game will launch later in 2020, though further official details beyond that are hard to come by at the time of this writing. However, a recent leak claims that Call of Duty 2020 is a Black Ops reboot, and beyond that, a 2021 Call of Duty game is set to be free-to-play and come from Sledgehammer Games.
The rumor stems from TheGamingRevolution, who recently leaked a number of upcoming Activision games on Twitter. TheGamingRevolution has had accurate Call of Duty franchise leaks in the past, and so he is a bit more of a reliable source than other random Internet game leakers, but fans should still take this information with a grain of salt regardless. In any case, TheGamingRevolution believes Sledgehammer Games is working on a free-to-play Call of Duty spin-off for 2021, and that the game may be yet another battle royale.
"This game is going to have a lot of battle royale elements and is going to be some sort of open world game," TheGamingRevolution said in a recent video, also clarifying that the game won't be the main Call of Duty for 2021. He also speculated that the rumored free-to-play Call of Duty 2021 could end up being added to the Warzone client as a sort of second map for that game as opposed to being a completely original thing.
TheGamingRevolution bases this theory on reports that YouTubers who were invited to play Warzone were told that it would be the "last" Call of Duty battle royale. Presumably, this would mean that Warzone would be expanded with new maps and the like, and if so, it stands to reason that the rumored Call of Duty 2021 battle royale will feature content based on this year's Call of Duty game, itself rumored to be a Black Ops reboot set in Vietnam.
Sledgehammer Games was working on the 2020 Call of Duty before development was reportedly taken over by Treyarch, so it wouldn't be a stretch to think that its 2021 game would be somehow connected to this year's entry. However, this is all heavy speculation based on rumors that haven't been backed up with concrete evidence. Considering this, fans should definitely keep their expectations in check. If Sledgehammer is truly developing a free Call of Duty game for 2021, it could just as easily be something completely different than a battle royale.
If Activision sticks to the pattern its established in past years, Call of Duty 2020 will be revealed within the next few months. However, fans may have to wait a year or more to learn more about the rumored Call of Duty 2021 from Sledgehammer Games.
Call of Duty 2021 is rumored to be in development.