New Call of Duty coming late 2021, Activision confirms

Black Ops Cold War — (Image credit: Activision)

A new Call of Duty game will arrive later this year, according to Activision Blizzard's Q4 2020 earnings call.

Transcribed by The Motley Fool, the earnings call includes Activision CFO Dennis Durkin discussing what the company has in store for the Call of Duty franchise, which has "the largest player community it has ever had to start a year" in 2021. It's no surprise, then, that Activision has "another strong premium release planned for Q4 in 2021."

The Call of Duty franchise has been wildly successful the last year or so, with the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone bringing in tons of new players and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War bringing back the ever popular zombies mode. With the integration of the two, Activision has shown that it's determined to keep Warzone as a constant in the Call of Duty universe while threading in new standalone titles.

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Unsurprisingly, Activision didn't share any details about the upcoming 2021 Call of Duty game - we've no idea what the subject matter may be or which developer may get behind it. Considering the loose pattern of Black Ops Treyarch titles offset by Infinity Ward games, I'd expect the next title to fall outside the Black Ops sub-series, with a continuation of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare storyline looking more likely.

Black Ops Cold War was released on November 13, 2020 which is standard Call of Duty practice, so the next title in the Call of Duty franchise will likely launch in a similar time frame this year - around the holidays, for sure.

Will the next title make our list of the best Call of Duty games?

Alyssa Mercante used to be a features writer at GamesRadar+ and is now a freelance writer and editor. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.