It is hard to believe that Call of Duty has been going for 23 years at this point, yet here we are. The steady stream of COD games over the past two decades has been somewhat unrelenting, yet, thanks to fairly consistent quality until recently, we’ve all largely enjoyed it, myself included. I have many fond memories of playing Call of Duty: World at War and Black Ops 3 with my siblings, and I went through a phase of playing nothing but WW2. It is a series that has meant a lot to me, filled many hours with enjoyable carnage, and helped create a bond between my family when words simply wouldn’t suffice.
However, as alluded to, Call of Duty’s quality has dipped rather significantly. It didn’t even just start with Black Ops 7 or Modern Warfare 3, although they are easy targets to blame. Call of Duty has been lagging behind the competition and failing to live up to its incredibly impressive legacy for quite some time. Indeed, it has gotten to the point where one has to wonder whether or not it is time for COD to take a break. Of course, it doesn’t help that 2026 may be a bad year for Call of Duty, regardless.
It is no great secret that Black Ops 7 performed abysmally both financially and critically. It had the franchise’s worst Steam debut to date, it was outsold by Battlefield 6 for the first time in history, struggled to maintain a decent player count, at least by its once high standards, and was largely maligned by fans. It sits at a Mostly Negative rating on Steam from just over 2,000 English reviews, a stark contrast to even its precessor which has a Mixed rating at over 8,000 English reviews. The interest is just not there, and it’s because, for the most part, Call of Duty just isn’t good anymore.
Technically and mechanically, Call of Duty is perfectly fine. It still runs and looks great, and Activision even fixed COD’s most controversial feature by removing the ridiculous skins that had plagued past entries. Yet, there’s something distinctly disappointing about it, a campaign that feels as if it was made with so little care, a multiplayer mode that hasn’t evolved in well over a decade, and gameplay that feels just as stagnant as it did in the past five games. Call of Duty just hasn’t changed, practically at all, in a very long time, and that makes it feel like every entry is just the same thing ever so slightly tweaked.
All of this led to Activision promising to improve COD going forward and to ensure it strives to achieve a much higher level of quality. It stated in a blog post that it “know[s] what [players] expect and rest assured we will deliver, and overdeliver, on those expectations as we move forward,” alongside promising to no longer release back-to-back Black Ops and Modern Warfare games. The problem is, Call of Duty is still due to be released this year, with many speculating that it’ll be Modern Warfare 4. Unless it began development immediately after Activision made those promises in December 2025, it seems unlikely it’ll be able to deliver the innovations fans want. There is simply no way a Call of Duty game releases this year and exceeds expectations, and that’s why it is time the series took a prolonged break.
It isn’t even that Call of Duty needs a year to get its affairs in order. This is a series that needs a complete reinvention, a ground-up reimagining of what Call of Duty means and looks like for this generation of gamers. Adding a new mode or two, or attempting to overcomplicate or simplify mechanics to target differing audiences, won’t work. It simply isn’t enough to just tweak things here and there. Call of Duty has to mean something in order to continue getting the audience it once was, as currently it stands for nothing but stagnation and iteration.
A reinvention of that magnitude will take time, and I’m just not convinced Activision will give the series the time it needs. Continuing to be an annual release, for example, is evidently not sustainable for long-term growth, even if it once meant more revenue in the short term. While it was perhaps an over-generalization to claim that people were sick of Call of Duty a few years ago, now it seems like it’s mostly true. Sure, it still sold millions of copies, and it has its fans, but the dwindling sales numbers and people jumping ship to EA’s Battlefield instead seem to indicate a shifting opinion.
With the way Activision and its subsidiaries develop Call of Duty, there is simply no way that we’re getting meaningful innovations until at least the next entry, but likely beyond. Whatever COD game is set to release in 2026 needs to be given an extra year of development time to iron out any holdovers from Black Ops 7 and the recent era of lacklustre entries. Realistically, for Activision to make good on its promise, I feel like we shouldn’t get a new game in the series until 2027. Frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that either.
Why does it need to be an annual release? Surely supporting the same game with additional maps and modes for at least two years would benefit devoted fans and ensure long-term growth. If I had to guess, it would be because Activision knows the current Call of Duty model can’t sustain more than one year, as the games are so repetitive and iterative. New maps and modes are basically all that a new COD game adds, aside from maybe a setting change and a terrible single-player campaign. By ditching that style of game and supporting its games long term, Activision can completely change the way we see Call of Duty for the better. At the very least, COD needs to skip 2026 to avoid GTA 6.
Grand Theft Auto 6 was delayed to November 2026, which is typically when Call of Duty launches. It seems to me that releasing any game, let alone one that is currently floundering, around GTA 6’s launch date would be a huge mistake. You could argue that GTA 6 is a single-player release and therefore doesn’t clash with COD’s multiplayer focus. However, considering Grand Theft Auto 6 will be, at least, a $70 title, people may not have the money to afford both, at least at launch, which is when it matters most. Of the two, I’d wager more are likely to buy GTA 6 than COD, especially after Black Ops 7’s abysmal performance.
Activision is shooting itself in the foot by releasing Call of Duty anywhere near GTA 6. Even if it chooses to release it in October, before GTA, it’ll lose players to Rockstar’s highly-anticipated title very quickly and see sales drop off. So, why not take the year off? It worked for Assassin’s Creed, which saw the series take a one-year break between the somewhat maligned Syndicate and Origins, during which time Ubisoft reinvented the series’ core gameplay loop and ensured its long-term survival.
It just feels like everything is pointing to Call of Duty needing a little rest. Of course, I want to see this series return and stronger than ever before. I do love Call of Duty and have done for a very long time. However, in its current state, it should not be hitting storefront shelves, especially not at premium prices. COD is just not what it used to be; it is boring, lacking in meaningful content, and a far cry from achieving the high bar of quality it once delivered.
My favorite aspect, the single-player campaigns, has been a joke for a very long time. They were what gave COD its identity, cemented many of its characters as gaming legends, and endeared so many of us to its universe and gameplay. The dismissal of the campaign is just another sign that Activision has lost the spark that once made the series so amazing. By skipping a year or two, Activision will give Call of Duty a fighting chance and ensure that, at least until it loses interest again and the annual releases begin to stagnate, we’ll actually enjoy it again.
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