Modern Warfare 4 has all but been officially named at this point, and Call of Duty fans are on the edges of their seats waiting for Infinity Ward to just say the word already. Too bad for them we’ve already gotten more news about 2020’s Call of Duty title than we have about this year’s upcoming release.
According to sources from within the Call of Duty companies, Activision announced to developers that Raven and Sledgehammer will no longer be heading Call of Duty 2020. Instead, Treyarch will be leading the development for a new Black Ops title, presumably Black Ops 5.
Constant tension between both Sledgehammer and Raven is said to be one of the primary causes of the complete reevaluation of Call of Duty’s future release path. Two people familiar with the project told Kotaku’s Jason Schreier that the project was a mess.
For the past few years, the Call of Duty franchise has been in a 3-year development cycle: Infinity Ward then Raven/Sledgehammer then Treyarch. This will be the first Call of Duty game released on a 2-year cycle (now that Raven and Sledgehammer are being replaced with another Treyarch title) since 2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
2020’s Call of Duty title was slated to be headed by Raven working alongside Sledgehammer (who usually took charge of their combined efforts), and was rumored to be set in the Cold War and Vietnam.
Raven and Sledgehammer will be taking their creative efforts for the Call of Duty they were working on up until this point and supporting Treyarch with the campaign mode for Black Ops 5. Activision denied to comment on the subject when questioned by Kotaku.