With a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 seemingly a lock for an upcoming announcement, we wanted to postulate just how we think Activision and Infinity Ward may look to release the title.
Activision typically reveals its next Call of Duty title in May of the year it is to be released. In fact, three of the most recent entries were revealed on May 1st, while the other two were on April 26th and May 2nd of their respective years. With that late-April/early-May reveal past by nearly two weeks, it makes more sense that Activision and Infinity Ward are prepping for a more traditional game reveal at E3.
While this may not seem to make a lot of sense on the surface given that Activision is not at E3 this year, and its partner for the last few years, PlayStation, is also skipping the show for the first time, E3 itself tweeted out that Infinity Ward will be at its E3 Coliseum to discuss the future of the franchise:
Announcing the first #E3Coliseum event! Join the Infinity Ward team for a panel discussing the next installment of the critically-acclaimed Call of Duty franchise. Get your tickets now at https://t.co/upcqHeX3V7 #E32019 pic.twitter.com/NU2ZbMGkcS
— E3 (@E3) May 7, 2019
The reveal is likely to come much before the Coliseum itself, which runs during E3 June 11-13, as the franchise hasn’t been absent from a major E3 conference in the last decade. Since Sony has decided to sit out of E3 this year, it may signal that Call of Duty is planning a return to the Xbox stage after being on display at PlayStation for the past few years. Microsoft is holding the Xbox E3 2019 Media Briefing on June 9, two days before the conference begins in earnest.
While multiplayer gaming tends to be the main draw in Call of Duty‘s extended lifecycle, the Modern Warfare games in particular have always been known for the immersive and often controversial storylines. With a number of former-Naughty Dog developers joining the ranks at Infinity Ward since working on 2016’s Infinite Warfare, it does virtually guarantee that their pedigree will be put to use in crafting the next Call of Duty‘s campaign storyline.
If anything, Naughty Dog was particularly poor at crafting multiplayer experiences, and with Infinity Ward’s Narrative Director Taylor Kurosaki being a Naughty Dog alum, it’s pretty well a lock that story will be a huge focus of the game this year.
To further this, on May 11th, an Infinity Ward developer who goes by iw_miked on Twitch, was streaming a round of Apex Legends while letting it known that the company has been working with “some ex-Naughty Dog guys” that have been “helping a lot with, you know, story stuff.”
What do you expect to see from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 when it is potentially revealed in just a few weeks? Is there any possibility that the game we’re about to see is not Modern Warfare 4?
It seems like we’ll find out everything in the coming weeks. E3 2019 is June 11-13, while the unofficial festivities begin on June 8th with EA’s Play Event and Microsoft’s Xbox Media Briefing taking place on June 9th.