Activision Blizzard has been releasing a new Call of Duty game every single year for more than a decade now. That annual schedule might finally be changing.
According to a report by Bloomberg earlier today, Activision Blizzard has been considering a strong possibility of ditching annual Call of Duty releases following its acquisition by Microsoft.
While the notion remains under consideration, such a move would give developers a lot more development time to ensure optimized and balanced releases. The player-base has for long been requesting Activision to focus on quality over quantity. Having a new Call of Duty game every couple of years or even three for that matter might actually breath new life into the franchise.
Ditching annual Call of Duty releases would also give developers room to work on other projects. Activision reportedly had more than 500 developers between four or five studios working on the franchise at any given time. That was raised to more than 2,000 developers between eight of its ten core studios, meaning that the publisher has been following an all-hands-on-deck situation for a while now.
Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games are three studios which have been pumping yearly Call of Duty games on a two- or three-year cycle. There are also developers Raven Software, High Moon Studios, Beenox, Demonware, and Toys for Bob within their ranks in addition to a new Activision Mobile studio to work on a new Call of Duty mobile game.
Moving away from yearly Call of Duty releases will free up a lot of resources and more importantly, give the studios to work on either old franchises or create new ones in the process.
Elsewhere, following the Microsoft-led acquisition of Activision Blizzard, there have been concerns about the future of Call of Duty on PlayStation. Xbox chief Phil Spencer has since then assured Sony Interactive Entertainment that Microsoft intends to keep the franchise on PlayStation and not make it an Xbox exclusive.
