When Bloomberg reported earlier this year (opens in new tab) that Activision would not be releasing a new CoD game in 2023, despite having released a new CoD game for 17 consecutive years, Call of Duty fans worldwide received a small shock to the system. Reports at the time indicated that instead of a traditional release, the company would focus solely on continued updates to this year's game, Modern Warfare 2 (opens in new tab), and the upcoming free-to-play Warzone 2.0.

Activision did not outright deny the reports earlier this year, but in its third-quarter earnings report released today, the company said that a new "premium" Call of Duty will indeed be available next year. What exactly that means, however, is not yet clear.

The announcement came in a section celebrating the big launch of Modern Warfare 2 and looking ahead to 2023. Activision looks forward to building on its current momentum in 2023, and plans for the coming year include the most robust Call of Duty live operation to date, the next full premium release in the annual blockbuster series, a platform-wide even more compelling free-to-play experiences across the platform," the report (opens in new tab) reads.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the author of the initial report, responded to the announcement on Twitter, noting that the "full premium release" Activision is touting is not the usual Call of Duty game players are used to, It is a paid expansion to Modern Warfare 2 developed by Sledgehammer Games, he said." There will be lots of content! Maybe that's why they call it a "full" release. But it's more MWII-like," Schreier said.

Activision's sparse details and Schreier's claims complicate things; Schreier describes CoD 2023 as "more MW2-like" and uses the word "expansion," but also says there will be "lots of content," possibly single player and multiplayer new features, and while Activision seems to be positioning this as the next big CoD title, Sledgehammer's project may be closer to a sequel to Modern Warfare 2 than additional content.

This confusion may perhaps stem from the vague and varying definitions of what a "full premium" Call of Duty is. Given the series' history of swapping themes and settings, it would be unusual for a sequel to Modern Warfare 2 (led by a different studio) to appear so soon. If that is indeed the plan, it is understandable why this game sounds less like a legitimate "complete" CoD game than, say, Treyarch's next installment. [When the Bloomberg report that Treyarch's next CoD game had been delayed a year first hit in February, publishers' reactions were not necessarily contradictory.

"We have exciting premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences in store for this year, next year, and beyond. Any reports otherwise are incorrect." We look forward to sharing more details when the time comes.

Now that "Modern Warfare 2" has been released, it seems like the time has come: it will still be months before Activision is ready to officially announce the true identity of CoD 2023 (and which team is producing it), and until then it's all rumors and reports. We have reached out to Activision for clarification on the nature of next year's CoD and will update the article when it arrives.