With fanfare Activision intends to reveal the next paces the Call of Duty franchise will be put through in a livestream event, Call of Duty Next, scheduled for September 15th, 1:00pm EST/10:00am PST. The featured lineup of announcements will include new details on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II multiplayer, the upcoming Modern Warfare II multiplayer beta, the new Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0, and Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile.
Unfortunately, the real story for players like myself isn't being told in a livestream, it's playing out in real time between boardrooms and legal teams as the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard threatens to remove the franchise from Sony systems entirely. Recent reports from Sony's camp have been extremely critical of the latest offer to continue to offer the game cross-platform. Whether those comments represent legitimate fears or just saber rattling is yet to be determined, but there is no doubt in my mind that Xbox Games Pass is the driving force behind all of this business and while it represents probably the best value in gaming history to it's subscribers, it also has driven a stark regression in cross platform availability across the industry with many indie titles going exclusively Xbox. I had hoped we were beyond these petty console wars but 2022 finds us right back on the front lines, and even though Microsoft has played nice thus far and not gone scorched earth yet, there's no doubt they are spending the money to put themself in a position of power to go there if they intend to in the future.
I'd much prefer a future where everyone gets to play whatever they want on whatever system they prefer, so we'll see whether that dreams holds or not.
