Something to look forward to: There's no arguing that the Call of Duty (CoD) franchise has had a rough ride over the last few years. Players have suffered through everything from unchecked cheaters to broken game mechanics, making the titles all but unplayable. In 2021, Ricochet anti-cheat also failed to deliver the solutions promised to improve the state of the game. Rather than continuing to bandage the same wounds, Infinity Ward has announced work on the next iteration of the Modern Warfare and Warzone games.
The new titles, teased by a Call of Duty blog community update, will use a brand new game engine developed by Infinity Ward (IW). The new engine's design provides better integration between the primary CoD and Warzone titles, which has been a continuous struggling point for developers. The new game engine will enable IW to create content across a common platform and establish a solid foundation for what the company describes as "a new Warzone experience."
The blog post was packed with information from the development team on their priorities, community requests, and future plans. The single-engine approach departs from the current game's architectures, which rely on different game engines from Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Treyarch. Using this approach across all CoD titles and developers provides an opportunity to create more seamless content integration points for future games.
Activision recently hosted a group call with Infinity Ward co-studio head Pat Kelly, Activision game director Josh Bridge, and Raven Software senior creative director Eric Biessman to discuss the current and future state of the CoD franchise. The group openly addressed the many issues plaguing Warzone.
The developers note that the urge to integrate other CoD titles into Warzone, such as Black Ops and Vanguard, has presented significant technical challenges. These challenges, and their solutions, contributed to the bloated state of a game that was initially meant as an extension of 2019's Modern Warfare.
The new titles and game engine will roll out sometime later in 2022. Infinity Ward also told players to expect a massive evolution of the battle royale experience. Let's hope that includes preventing wallhacks and flying cars.