BLOWING UP

CALL OF DUTY is still huge - and that could stop Microsoft buying Activision

- Rich Stanton

Call of Duty's now been part of the gaming scenery for two decades, and ever since the original Modern Warfare (2007) took it into the stratosphere, it has become a regular blockbuster release. That cadence matters, and the sheer size of the series has meant that CoD has become a focal point for Microsoft's proposed $65 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

There were two years between the first two games: ever since, it's had a yearly entry like clockwork. No other shooter releases like this, but that reliability became a huge factor in CoD's growth. Over the last decade especially it has come to inspire fierce loyalty among its huge fanbase before, in 2020, Warzone offered a free-to-play CoD and saw huge success.

This year's mainline entry was Modern Warfare II, as good as the series has been in many years, but perhaps even bigger was the release of Warzone 2.0. Both launched with kinks and in Warzone's case especially it wasn't too long before we saw invincible players and flying boats. With a launch on this scale, those first few weeks must feel like whack-a-mole for developers.