Call of Duty: Vanguard, the cross-gen title released last fall, didn’t live up to Activision Blizzard’s standards, so the publisher has changed its plans.

The publisher that Microsoft is looking to acquire also published its annual report for the previous quarter (October-December), which attracted attention not only because of the Redmond takeover bid but also because of the plethora of scandals within the company. However, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and the management team have not been in the spotlight: due to Microsoft’s entry, they will not hold conference calls during the reports, which has been the usual practice.

Let’s quickly chew through the stats: in the last quarter of 2020, the company had a net income of $2.42 billion, which dropped to 2.16 in Q4 2021. The main reason behind it was the half a billion-dollar loss for Activision, as Call of Duty: Vanguard did not sell well, was not well received, and the company had a negative result for the Pacific update of Call of Duty: Warzone. On the plus side, King, the mobile developer, had massive success with Candy Crush…

Kotick wrote in a statement, “I’m so incredibly proud of our teams for their commitment and passion as we continued to engage the world through epic entertainment in 2021. As we look to the future, with Microsoft’s scale and resources, we will be better equipped to grow existing franchises, launch new potential franchises and unlock the rich library of games we have assembled over 40 years. Our 370 million players around the world and workplace excellence remain our focus. For investors, our recently announced transaction is the culmination of three decades of providing superior shareholder returns.”

From the financial report, we officially learned what had been rumoured: Infinity Ward is responsible for the “premium”, or pay-to-play, 2022 Call of Duty, which is rumoured to be Modern Warfare II, but the next big update to Warzone will also be tied to their name. Already on Twitter, it has been teased that a new generation of Call of Duty is in the works…, that sounds interesting.

Does this thought mean they’re leaving the PlayStation 4/Xbox One duo behind?

Source: WCCFTech