New Call of Duty from Sledgehammer is ‘built for next-gen’, Activision says

Activision Blizzard has confirmed that Sledgehammer Games is leading development of 2021’s premium Call of Duty game.

“In particular, we are very excited for this year’s premium Call of Duty release,” president and chief operating officer Daniel Alegre said during the company’s first quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

“Development is being led by Sledgehammer Games and the game is looking great and on track for its fall release.

“This is a built for next generation experience with stunning visuals across campaign, multiplayer and co-operative modes of play, designed to both integrate with and enhance the existing COD ecosystem,” Alegre added.

“We look forward to sharing more details with the community soon.”

Sledgehammer previously developed Call of Duty games World War 2 (2017) and Advanced Warfare (2014), and co-developed Modern Warfare 3 (2011) with Infinity Ward.

This year’s new Call of Duty game will also be set during World War 2, according to reports VGC understands to be accurate.

Call of Duty WW2: Vanguard is expected to return to the Modern Warfare 2019 engine, ‘IW8’, which also powers Warzone, after last year’s Black Ops Cold War switched to an upgraded version of Treyarch’s Black Ops 4 technology.

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Sources: Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty ‘Vanguard’ will return to WW2

It’s understood the 2021 game will return to Modern Warfare's engine, but a Warzone map is uncertain

The game will likely share weapons and progression with Warzone, but it’s unclear how deep the integration with the battle royale title will go, due to both scheduling issues and the significant change in time setting.

“If we look ahead for Warzone later this year, there’ll be some other really fun integration with the great work that Sledgehammer Games is leading for this year’s new premium release,” Activision president Rob Kostich said on Tuesday’s earnings call.

“It’s worth noting that Sledgehammer is a studio now that is also stronger than ever. The studio has expanded its very talented team across its Foster City and Melbourne locations and now it’s even expanding further to Sledgehammer Toronto.

“Most importantly, at the end of the day, we believe fans are going to be really, really excited and are going to love what the studio is building.”

Activision claimed in April that over 400 million Call of Duty premium games have been sold since the first one released in October 2003.

The Call of Duty franchise has generated “life to date consumer spending of around $27 billion”, it also said in February.