Call of Dutyas a franchise has been a consistently dominant force among the popular first-person shooter genre for some time, but now the franchise seems to moving towards longer life-cycles and campaigns. Finding its roots all the way back in 2004,CoDhas constantly adjusted its core formula over many years in its efforts to rise to the top of the industry, and this is the latest change.
Ever since its inception,Call of Dutyhas been typified by consistent annual releases, creating a predictable life cycle for franchise installments that fostered consistent and endless content. That being said, it is reported thatCall of Dutyis finally set to move away from this annual release formula, and the resultantly longer game life cycles could provide a huge opportunity for post-launch campaign DLC.
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Call of Duty’s Longer Life Cycles
Reports ofCall of Dutybreaking its annual release formula came earlier this year, with many pointing to the weakersales ofCall of Duty Vanguardas being the catalyst for this change. The upcomingModern Warfare 2will supposedly be the firstCall of Dutytitle to have a two-year life cycle, with noCall of Dutyset to release in 2023.
The intended scale ofModern Warfare 2is already obvious due to the title’s aim to build on the expectations set by its 2019 predecessor, with the game also set to release alongside a sequel to the massivelypopular battle royaleCall of Duty Warzone. With the added knowledge that the upcoming title is set to have two years in which it will have to keep fans occupied, Activision could further break the norms of the mega-franchise by implementing post-launch DLC to the game’s campaign mode.
Post-Launch Campaign DLC For Call of Duty
Thecampaign ofModern Warfare 2is already aiming to be quite expansive, telling the tale of the fan-favorite Task Force 141 working alongside Mexican Special Forces in what appears to be the search for nuclear warheads. While the search for weapons of mass destruction was a large factor of originalModern Warfaretitles, the introduction of Mexican Special Forces as a part of a coalition task force is entirely unique to the upcomingMW2.
Understandably, a lot of theModern Warfarereboot’s story will need to be left up in the air to be concluded in a likelyModern Warfare 3, but the Mexican Special Forces could feature in their own post-launch campaign, taking place either before or after the events of the game. The2024 TreyarchCall of Dutytitlewould also be perfect for post-launch campaign DLC, with Treyarch’s history of having multiple branching storylines within its titles opening untold storytelling opportunities for post-launch expansions.
Despite how iconic many ofCall of Duty’scampaigns have proven to be, it’s no secret that it is a mode that the developers have neglected in terms of post-launch attention when compared toCoD’sother modes. While online-oriented modes will probably get more attention overall, the recent shift in theCall of Dutyformula could herald in a new age of singleplayer DLC for the franchise.
