After the aquisition of Activision/Blizzard by Microsoft, the studio announced that there wasn’t going to be a full standalone release to Call of Duty this year. However, this seems to have changed. New reports indicate development on the 2023 Call of Duty has spiraled into a full standalone release. According to the latest information, the new title will be an expansion to Modern Warfare 2. Here’s everything we know so far.

2023’s Call of Duty is a Standalone Expansion to Modern Warfare 2

Bloomberg has reported that this years Call of Duty game is planned to be a standalone expansion to last year’s Modern Warfare 2. It’s being developed by Sledgehammer games, whose last entry into the series, Call of Duty: Vanguard, was a commercial failure.

According to the report, the game includes a new campaign continuing the story from the ending of Modern Warfare 2. This will most likely follow Task Force 141 fighting against the new rendition of Makarov. The report also mentions that a majority of the maps and modes from last year’s game are going to be included in this new release.

There originally wasn’t a plan for 2023 to have a standalone Call of Duty title. Activision announced that despite its delay of Treyarch’s next installment from 2023 to 2024, it would still be releasing a full premium Call of Duty title.

According to the report, what happened behind the scenes was as follows. Sledgehammer was given the reigns to develop an expansion to MW2. However, as development continued on the title, it spiraled into its own standalone game.

Activision hasn’t announced that this is the case, but it seems like the most likely series of events.

As for the title, it will most likely not be named Modern Warfare 3. After all, it’s meant to be a spin-off of MW2. It’s probably safe to assume that the title will remain as “Modern Warfare 2” but with an additional subtitle.

Perhaps the title could be a nod to other games in the series, such as MW2: Mobilized, as a reference to the DS version. Or perhaps MW2: Reflex, which would be a nod to the old Wii version. Either way, it seems we’ll have to wait and see.