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2019/05

Call Of Duty Development Shakeup Reportedly Slates Black Ops 5 For 2020

It looks like the Call of Duty series in in the midst of a shakeup, as the team at Treyarch is reportedly taking over development of the series installment slated for 2020, which will be a new entry in the Black Ops series.

To the casual observer, the Call of Duty series is set to roll on as ever, with a brand new game set to launch on an annual basis from now until the end of time. What’s going on behind the scenes with development, though, is pretty fascinating. Since 2012, the series has rotated through three lead developers including Treyarch, Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer. That gives teams three years to work on a game and keeps those Call of Duty titles flowing.

Based on a report from Kotaku, though, that’s all set to change next year. Treyarch just put out Black Ops IIII (yes, they do the number that way), boasting a beefy multiplayer suite, cooperative zombies mode, all-new battle royale mode and no single player campaign.  Next up is Infinity Ward, who is slated to launch a new game this winter with all signs pointing to a new game under the Modern Warfare umbrella.

For 2020, the team at Sledgehammer was working with support from the squad at Raven to make a new game reportedly set during the Cold War. According to the report, those two studios have been butting heads quite a bit and, given that 2020 is expected to be a transitional year for home consoles, Activision decided to make some rather unexpected changes.

While this has not been confirmed by the publisher (and likely won’t be until everything comes out in the wash), multiple sources have confirmed that Treyarch has been inserted back into the lead position to work on the 2020 Call of Duty with Raven and Sledgehammer now shifted to a support capacity.

The word is that the next game will be developed to straddle the generation gap, with the 2020 Call of Duty developed to launch on current consoles and whatever comes next from Microsoft and Sony. Also, the work that was already being done on the next game won’t be totally scrapped. It sounds like the game is now being developed as Black Ops V (Or IIIII, if they want to keep being ridiculous) and it, too, will be set during the Cold War. In other words, the campaign that was being worked on only needs to be retooled rather than begun anew.

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