Activision has announced the next game in the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III.
A brief teaser video published online tells us the game is due out on November 10.
The trailer does not contain any gameplay footage, but does briefly show the obfuscated faces of a couple of key characters from the series, Captain John Price from the previous title in this lineage and key baddie Vladimir Makarov.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III will release just over a year after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, which came out on October 28, 2022.
How is such a quick turnaround possible when we’ve just heard stories about Baldur’s Gate 3 being in development for six years?
As ever, Activision’s Call of Duty series uses rotating developers. Modern Warfare II was made by Infinity Ward, Modern Warfare III is in the hands of Sledgehammer Games. This is the team behind several titles in the series including 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard and, curiously enough, 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
The old Modern Warfare series and these new ones share little more than a name and certain thematic leaning: we’re not dealing with World War II here, folks.
How does Microsoft’s acquisition affect Call of Duty?
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III arrives far too soon to be significantly affected by the proposed acquisition of series publisher Activision’s parent company Action Blizzard by Microsoft, for around £54 billion.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the lone hold-out in blocking the deal, after it was green-lit by key EU and US regulators.
Microsoft has sent its final arguments to the CMA, which is due to make its decision on August 29. It argues material changes have come about since the CMA first rejected the takeover in April 2023.
While much fuss has been made over whether the Call of Duty series will continue to be available for consoles other than Microsoft’s Xbox, the CMA’s key arguments relate to game streaming.
It blocked the acquisition “to protect innovation and choice in cloud gaming”. Microsoft’s cloud gaming is available as part of Xbox Game Pass, letting you play games over the internet without installing them on your console.
In this situation, the actual processing work is undertaken at one of Microsoft’s Azure server centres, while just the video is delivered to your living room.
Sony also uses game streaming as part of its PlayStation Plus Premium subscription, while Nvidia’s GeForce Now is generally considered to be the most technically proficient mainstream cloud gaming solution.
GeForce Now’s top tier costs £17.99 a month and offers power equivalent to up to an Nvidia RTX 4080 graphics card, which is far more performant than an Xbox Series X or PlayStation 5. There’s also a cheaper £8.99 a month tier. But does Nvidia GeForce Now have Call of Duty? Not at present.
