Last year, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was released, and last month, we saw the premiere of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. However, the reception has been lukewarm (and that's putting it mildly) from both the media and fans, and now it seems that investigations into what went wrong have yielded the first concrete results. This includes, among other things, questioning the decision to release games in the same Call of Duty family so close together.
A post on the series' official website now announces that significant changes are underway in the overall strategy, with a very concrete example. But they begin by apologizing and promising to do better:
"We also know that for some of you, the Franchise has not met your expectations fully. To be very clear, we know what you expect and rest assured we will deliver, and overdeliver, on those expectations as we move forward."
To achieve this, Activision Blizzard will stop releasing Call of Duty games in the same sub-series (such as Modern Warfare or Black Ops) back-to-back. They write:
"We will no longer do back-to-back releases of Modern Warfare or Black Ops games. The reasons are many, but the main one is to ensure we provide an absolutely unique experience each and every year."
We can also look forward to changes that actually mean something rather than small gimmicks that no one really asked for, even if they don't want to give any examples of what this could mean in reality:
"We will drive innovation that is meaningful, not incremental. While we aren't sharing those plans today, we look forward to doing so when the time is right."
Releasing games in the same franchise every year has proven to be more difficult than Activision Blizzard may have anticipated, and there are a couple of titles that should have been better, and the feeling of rushed warfare is unfortunately not uncommon. We are keeping our fingers crossed that the measures will yield results, and they conclude by talking about a new generation of Call of Duty games:
"We have been building the next era of Call of Duty, and it will deliver precisely on what you want along with some surprises that push the Franchise and the genre forward. We look forward to welcoming you in, listening to you, and moving forward together."