According to a new report from Insider Gaming, the 2024 Call of Duty release Black Ops Gulf War and an unannounced 2025 title will mainly feature open-world style missions.
This wouldn’t be Call of Duty’s first time tackling open-world concepts, as they did so in games like 2023’s Modern Warfare 3. But it sounds a bit different this time around, according to IG’s sources.
The open-world missions are described as “more akin to that of a Far Cry than anything we’ve seen before in the Call of Duty universe.” However, it doesn’t just mean players can walk around large spaces and explore where they’d like. It also means drivable vehicles, a typical fast travel system, and we’d speculate a few more mechanics not found in typical Call of Duty campaigns. Although linear campaign missions will be much less prevalent, the report claims some linear missions will still appear.
The report also claims Call of Duty 2025 will not only have an open-world campaign but will feature a map “separated into several different biomes/locations.”
The future of Call of Duty
Lastly, the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Gulf War reportedly has Raven Software on the campaign, while Treyarch will develop the multiplayer and zombie modes. However, reports indicate the 2025 title was originally intended for Sledgehammer Games, but the studio rejected the offer, claiming it didn’t want to be a “year 2 support studio.”
It’s a lot of Call of Duty news to process, but big shifts have been happening at the company. Changes were expected after Microsoft first announced it would acquire Activision Blizzard in January 2022.
A major change came on December 29, 2023, as CEO Bobby Kotick stepped down from his role. Just recently Johanna Faries, the previous Call of Duty franchise general manager at Activision, was named president of Blizzard. And in January 2024, Microsoft laid off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees.
