The next Call of Duty game, set for release in 2024, may be another entry in the Black Ops series of games and set in the Gulf War, according to a new report.
As reported by Windows Central, the Treyarch-developed next release in the Call of Duty franchise will be a new Black Ops game, though its official name is still being decided internally. It will take place during the Gulf War, additionally touching on the global political fallout after the Cold War. Windows Central describes the approach as having a "nuanced" narrative, focusing on different participants in the Gulf War.
This largely corroborates similar reports of the Gulf War setting inadvertently leaked by an actor earlier this year.
Additionally, the report suggests the new game will lean back into more traditional military combat tech and Black Ops gadgets, rather than focusing on the futuristic tech some of the more recent Call of Duty games have embraced.
Currently, this new Black Ops game is planned for a launch in 2024 around roughly the usual time in late fall/early winter. Windows Central suggests that some kind of major pre-order bonus is in consideration at Activision, which would include multiple days or even weeks of early access to the game.
Call of Duty faces challenging times
We just saw the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which our IGN reviewers were a bit underwhelmed by. We gave the single-player campaign a 4/10, calling it "underbaked, rehashed, and cobbled together from multiplayer parts," while the multiplayer itself was a 6/10 that we said "reheats and reserves the same multiplayer from Modern Warfare 2 with some extra maps and tweaks as garnishes."
The developers have since discussed planned changes and tweaks to the game that are being made based on community feedback, though some hoped-for fixes have been delayed to future patches.
Meanwhile, the last Treyarch-developed Call of Duty game was also the most recent Black Ops game, Black Ops Cold War, and it fared somewhat better in our single-player review and roughly the same in multiplayer.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
