By Rob Leane

Published: Wednesday, 23 February 2022 at 12:00 am

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Activision has confirmed that the new CoD game for 2022 will be a sequel to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which has led to plenty of speculation about the Modern Warfare 2 release date.

A few details were revealed when Activision announced this new Modern Warfare sequel, although the company did not confirm that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be its official name. (There was already a game with that name in 2009, of course, but Activision has repeated itself in the past in similar ways.)

One thing we know for sure is that the next CoD game will be made by Infinity Ward, and that the team of developers will also be making a new Warzone experience to go with the new Modern Warfare 2.

Infinity Ward made the original Modern Warfare game and its 2019 reboot (and several other titles in this storied franchise), but it’s worth noting that this particular team did not make last year’s Call of Duty: Vanguard. Make of that what you will.

So, what do we actually know about CoD 2022, which may or may not end up being called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? Keep on reading to find out.

When is the CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 release date?

We would predict that Infinity Ward’s new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare sequel will launch in the fourth quarter of 2022.

After all, in recent years, new CoD games have tended to drop somewhere between September and December. It’s easy to see why the rumours are pointing to a similar launch window here.

However, Activision has not yet confirmed a release date for this game, so we could yet be proven wrong on this front.

CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 story

Activision

CoD 2022 is a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare. Activision has confirmed that the 2022 CoD game will be a sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare, which gives us some degree of a clue as to where the story could be headed.

We would, obviously, expect the game to be set in the modern day (or something close to it), as opposed to the distant future or military history.

Modern Warfare 2019 also ended with John Price making it clear that he planned to form Task Force 141 with operatives Johnny ‘Soap’ MacTavish, Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick and Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley, along with as the playable characters Alex, Farah and Nikolai.

This task force undertook a number of operations in the original Modern Warfare series (which was rebooted by the 2019 title), so it seems likely that we’ll see them squadding up in the new game. Exactly who they’ll be fighting, though, remains to be seen.

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CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 gameplay

Of course, you can probably expect the 2022 CoD game to be a first-person shooter with a number of multiplayer modes. It hasn’t been confirmed yet, but we’d also hope to see a single-player campaign included.

Not much has been said about the gameplay yet, but Activision has teased that this game will be powered by a new engine, which implies there could be some significant upgrades. As we hear more, we’ll let you know.

How will CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 impact Warzone?

As Activision revealed on the Call of Duty blog, “The new game and a new Warzone experience are designed together from the ground-up​”, with Infinity Ward leading the development on both projects.

Fans have been told to expect “a massive evolution of Battle Royale with all-new playspace and a new sandbox mode​.” That sounds to us like a total overhaul to Warzone, the free-to-play shooter that originally spun out from 2019’s Modern Warfare.

To us, this sounds like the current Warzone/Vanguard crossover will eventually end and pave the way for the new Warzone to launch, but that is strictly speculation for now.

What does this mean for CoD 2023?

While this Modern Warfare sequel seems to be on track to launch in 2022, it sounds like you could be waiting longer than usual for next Call of Duty game after this one.

A report from Bloomberg recently claimed that a different CoD game, originally planned for 2023, has now been pushed back to 2024. Per Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, this decision was reportedly made “after a recent entry in the series failed to meet expectations”.

This decision was apparently “not related” to the fact that Microsoft bought Activision recently, although many speculated when that deal was made that it could prompt the Call of Duty franchise to move away from its traditional yearly cadence of new releases.

Bloomberg’s report also noted that, according to their sources, “Activision is working on other projects to fill the gap next year. A Call of Duty game set to come out this fall will receive a steady stream of additional content, and there will be a new, free-to-play online title next year.”

To our ears, this makes it sound like the 2022 CoD game (the Modern Warfare sequel) could have a longer-than-usual shelf-life in order to fill the gap left by its successor’s delay. It could receive a bumper roadmap of post-launch content, then, but only time will tell if all these reports and rumours are accurate.

CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 platforms

Will CoD 2022 be an Xbox exclusive, or will it also be available on PS4 and PS5? That question was raised by many when Microsoft, the makers of the Xbox consoles, announced their intent to acquire the CoD owners from Activision.

The answer seems to be this: CoD 2022 will launch on PlayStation consoles, as well as Xbox and PC. But we haven’t heard that from an official source just yet.

Another report from Bloomberg states that the next three Call of Duty games will launch on PlayStation, Xbox and PC, with Microsoft honouring a previous agreement between Sony and Activision.

This chimes with what all the parties involved have said publicly, but still, Activision made no mention of platforms when it announced the 2022 CoD game. We’d be very surprised if that Bloomberg reported ended up being wrong, though.

CoD 2022 Modern Warfare 2 pre-order

You cannot pre-order the 2022 CoD game just yet, with the new Modern Warfare sequel yet to appear at retailers such as Amazon, GAME and Currys. Until those product pages do start to appear, you could go back and play 2019’s Modern Warfare if you haven’t already.