Activision is planning to launch a new sub-franchise of Call Of Duty in 2027 according to a prominent insider, the first in five years.
There are very few surprises when it comes to Call Of Duty these days, both in its gameplay and the fact each annual instalment is usually leaked years in advance.
As announced last month, this year’s entry is another Black Ops sequel, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, from developer Treyarch. While nothing official has been said about the 2026 game, it’s rumoured to be a sequel to 2023’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, centred around Korea and made by Infinity Ward.
While some hoped the following entry in 2027 would be a sequel to Sledgehammer’s futuristic Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, it seems the studio might be cooking up an entirely new sub-franchise.
According to reliable Call Of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope, the 2027 game will be ‘set in a completely new sub-franchise’ in the ‘modern era’. While there aren’t many details on what will separate it from Modern Warfare, movement is planned to be a ‘big focus’, which will include a lot of martial arts.
‘There may be a focus on martial arts within the gameplay with ‘karate kicks’ and ‘karate chops’ as examples,’ they wrote on X.
It’s unclear if this will still be a relatively minor element or some kind of elaborate Sifu-esque overhaul, but it’s certainly a bizarre addition if true. Especially given how difficult it is to create meaningful melee combat in a first person perspective.
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The leaker claims the title, developed by Sledgehammer Games, will not feature jetpacks or Zombies mode. However, the parkour-themed mode Get High, which debuted in the studio’s last Call Of Duty game Modern Warfare 3, is ‘planned’ to return.
Not featuring Zombies is a major shift for the series, which has relied on it for its co-op mode for many years now. Although Zombies has begun to seem increasingly in need of an overhaul in recent sequels, so this may be an implicit acceptance of that.
While we likely won’t get confirmation of these details until around this time in 2027, Call Of Duty hasn’t tried to launch a new sub-franchise since 2021’s Call Of Duty: Vanguard, a Second World War shooter which fell below Activision’s sales expectations.
Whether the new game lands with the general Call Of Duty masses or not, the series is in dire need of some kind of refresh – especially as we’ve been stuck in a Black Ops and Modern Warfare rotation for the past four years.
The next instalment, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, was officially announced during last month’s Xbox games showcase, with a full reveal set to take place at Gamescom in August.
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