Activision Blizzard has become the latest company to reveal their financial results for the previous quarter of the year and they revealed their Call of Duty franchise isn’t doing as well as they’d hoped. Not only are Call of Duty: Vanguard‘s sales lower than expected, the number of players engaging with Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific has also declined. This meant Activision’s net revenues dropped by 10% and their net bookings by 18%, although net income increased by 11%.
COD: Vanguard’s sales are disappointing
Call of Duty: Vanguard’s sales during the first months of its release are lower than those of COD Black Ops Cold War during the same period of its lifetime, both for console and PC. Call of Duty: Warzone’s player numbers are also down when compared to the same time frame in the previous financial year, although they still remain higher than the the game’s launch period in March 2020. The only salvation for the franchise was that Call of Duty Mobile continues to do incredibly well with players spending more than $1 billion in the game during 2021.
Activision is hoping to revive the franchise with next year’s offering. Call of Duty 2022, rumored to be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is in development at Infinity Ward, while the studio is also leading development on Warzone during the same period. Activision said “the team is working on the most ambitious plan in franchise history, with industry-leading innovation and a broadly appealing franchise setting”.
Both Vanguard and Warzone Pacific are struggling onwards for now, although Season Two has been delayed until February 14 to allow the developers to fix other issues within the games. With that content creeping closer to release, leaks have started to appear as to what that content may involve. In a Tweet from renowned leaker ZestyCODLeaks, purported promotional art and in-game images from Season two show a large map that implies a large-scale mode along the lines of Ground War may be arriving soon.
Three new Operators supposedly arriving in Season 2 are called Anna, Gustavo, and Thomas, while three new weapons already identified include the Colt-Browning M1895 “Potato Digger” LMG, the Knorr Bremse MG35, and the Armaguerra OG-43 SMG. All of the aforementioned artwork has since been removed due to DMCAs. As usual, though, take these rumors with a pinch of salt.
In other news, Nintendo has confirmed they won’t be joining an acquisitions arms race with Microsoft and Sony, instead preferring to invest in their own first-party titles. Elsewhere, a Bloodborne PSX demake has proven exceptionally popular with more than 100,000 downloads in just 24 hours.
