The Call of Duty games have been the most popular first-person shooters on the market for some time. Constantly jostling for sales against contemporaries like Battlefield, Call of Duty has garnered a great reputation for being one of the most accessible first-person shooters on console as well as PC.
Ever since Call of Duty's popularity exploded, Activision has doubled down on the franchise time and again. While this has got the publisher in bad waters many a time, the franchise has mostly remained the juggernaut, so it's clear why that persists. This year's entry is seemingly codenamed Call of Duty: WW2 Vanguard, and it seems that Activision might be sticking to its cross-gen release structure much like the past.
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While entries in the Call of Duty franchise may have received varying amounts of critical and commercial success, Activision has seemingly been fixated on putting it on as many strong platforms as possible. While it seems Battlefield may be eye-balling a pure PS5/Xbox Series X release, there's a high chance that CoD 2021 releases on current gen, as well as PS4 and Xbox One.
Activision has a proven track record of this, maximizing the availability of platforms for the Call of Duty games. The PS3 and Xbox 360 received a couple of entries after the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One, with the last 7th gen Call of Duty being Black Ops 3. It seems that Activision might just continue the trend to rake in the most sales and do so again this year.
The availability of the next game across more platforms is great for fans of the franchise, especially given the current availability of the next-gen consoles. Despite being over 5 months since the release of the next-gen machines, many fans are having a really hard time picking up a new PS5 or Xbox Series X console. With the ongoing pandemic aftermath and global silicon shortage, many have speculated that the shortages might last a bit more longer. Hence, it might be ultimately great that less-privileged fans get to enjoy the game on a platform that they already own.
With Battlefield 6 presumably going all-out for a next-gen release, Activision might really need to prioritize innovation to go compete with EA's offerings. However, as it stands now, it seems that Call of Duty 2021 would most probably stick to a cross-gen release.
Call of Duty 2021 is rumored to be in development.