New Call of Duty games will likely be revealed later in the year to give Warzone time to shine

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"Marketing is changing" as a result of Warzone's success

Warzone season 3
(Image credit: Activision)

New mainline Call of Duty games will likely be revealed later in the year and closer to their launch as a result of Warzone's success. 

That's according to Call of Duty franchise head and Activision publishing president Rob Kostich, who discussed the publisher's plans for Call of Duty in a recent interview with VentureBeat. Regarding later announcements for new games, like the late-August reveal of Black Ops Cold War, Kostich agreed that "we're probably shifting a bit more in that direction."

"Most of the reason is – you’ve seen what we have in [Warzone Season 3] this week," Kostich explains. "We have so much to talk about and so much going on that’s happening this week. We want to focus on that with the community, focus on the journey with them. Also, as you saw last year, we did some cool things in terms of integrating the reveal of Black Ops into Warzone. Those are the things we want to orchestrate and provide to our community, letting them discover Call of Duty themselves in their play experience. That part’s been fun for us and our development teams. 

"Marketing is changing within Call of Duty, how we get the community to participate and uncover things for us. It might be happening later, but it’s all part of a broader agenda to bring the community along on a fun journey."

Kostich's description suggests that while Warzone has been positioned as both an on-ramp for Call of Duty as a franchise – or rather, a "welcome mat," as he says elsewhere in this interview – it's also developed into a strong and popular game in its own right. As a result, while Activision will continue to leverage it as a platform for announcements, it also wants to give new Warzone content – like the headlining Warzone nuke event that kicked off the new season – time to develop on its own. With this in mind, we can expect more late summer or early fall reveals for future Call of Duty games. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.