Even with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare still in development, new information about next year’s games is coming out. New Call of Duty 2020 leaks, from a reputable source, indicate that both a free-to-play standalone Call of Duty battle royale game game, and a new Call of Duty: Black Ops sequel are coming next year.
The rumor comes from a Twitter posts by YouTuber LongSensation. If the name sounds familiar, LongSensation accurately leaked that this year’s Call of Duty would be called Modern Warfare back in May. The first game is a Modern Warfare‘s battle royale spin-off that’s coming as a separate game that’s still linked to that game. The second is a proper sequel to Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 called either Black Ops 5 or simply just Black Ops, which Kotaku also reported on in May.
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Activision making a free-to-play Modern Warfare battle royale game presents an interesting proposition. Two of the big three battle royale games, PUBG, Fortnite, and Apex Legends, are free-to-play as well. As such, this Modern Warfare battle royale spin-off could possibly be a more direct challenge to them than Black Ops 4‘s Blackout mode. Of course, some could say that Blackout was Activision’s answer to those games, but tying it to an annual Call of Duty release gave it some issues in the eyes of fans since it puts a short lifespan on a genre people want to stick to.
When Black Ops 4‘s battle royale focus was announced last year, many fans complained about it taking the place of the series’ traditional single player campaign mode. Modern Warfare‘s battle royale mode being its own standalone game may help it avoid the former’s issues, as it will come with its own campaign.
Speaking of campaigns, the new Black Ops’ will supposedly cover both the Korean War and Vietnam War. The latter was the subject of some missions from the original Call of Duty: Black Ops from 2010. Additionally, LongSensation stated that this game has been described as “more gritty and gruesome than Modern Warfare.”
Of course, none of these have been confirmed by Activision, so whether or not the leaks are real are still up in the air. That said, LongSensation has leaked accurate information before. Additionally, next year does represent Black Ops‘ 10th anniversary, so at the very least, a new Black Ops game in 2020 does seem to make some sense.
