For well over a decade, the Call of Duty series has been a constant in yearly release calendars for players looking to enjoy the fast and frenetic first-person action the franchise is known for. The proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, though, is causing major ripples across the industry giant with its new parent company at the helm. It may be seen as early as 2023 as, according to an industry insider, the delay of Treyarch's next Call of Duty game into 2024 can see a "premium" DLC release in place of a full release for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

2022's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the sequel to the 2019 reboot of one of the Call of Duty franchise's most popular subseries. The sequel picks up three years after the events of the 2019 game and the formation of Task Force 141 by series mainstay Captain John Price alongside Kyle "Gaz" Garrick, John "Soap" MacTavish, and Simon "Ghost" Riley. They are joined by Mexican Special Forces Colonel Vargas on a mission to uncover a plot involving the terrorist group Al-Qatala and the Las Alamas drug cartel, which could lead to World War 3.

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The aforementioned report about Modern Warfare 2's possible future content comes from industry insider Jason Schreier, who commented on Twitter about Activision Blizzard's Q2 2022 earnings call. In the earnings call, Activision said it was planning to develop and release "new premium content" for Call of Duty starting in 2023. Schreier suggests the first of this "premium content" would be add-on content for Modern Warfare 2 to fill the gap left by the reported delay of Treyarch's next Call of Duty game from 2023 to 2024.

If Schreier's prediction pans out, it could mark a major shift for the Call of Duty franchise which has released a new entry every year since 2005's Call of Duty 2. The series has engrained itself as a marque release every year alongside annualized sports series such as Madden and NBA 2K, with Call of Duty becoming one of the most successful entertainment franchises in history. Players could expect a new entry, with the only questions being which of the now three developers - Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games - are working on it and if it would belong to a subseries such as Black Ops or be a new entry.

It is also possible Phil Spencer and Xbox Games Studios may be looking to shake up the series' release formula if Treyarch's next entry is delayed to 2024. Xbox's proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard has led to plenty of speculation about what the publisher's future could be as part of Xbox Games Studios, whether it be the possibility of multiplatform titles becoming console exclusives or future Call of Duty games being given longer development time. It remains to be seen if any of this speculation becomes reality if the acquisition goes through, but given how much has already changed in the video game industry as a whole over the last few years, nothing is off the table.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is scheduled to release on October 28, 2022, on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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