The rumour mill for the next Call of Duty game has really started to kick into gear. Following reports that COD 2019 could end up being a sequel to 2013’s Ghosts, it was swiftly confirmed that this might not be the case after all.
Internet speculation on Ghosts II began after Infinity Ward Comms Manager Ashton Williams took to Twitter to post a series of skull-based imagery. Given Infinity Ward developed the first Ghosts, and the images posted by Williams seemed to fit with that particular Call of Duty title’s bleak aesthetic, it seemed a clear tease.
However, Kotaku writer Jason Schreier soon took to the ResetEra thread discussing the next Call of Duty to say that it “ain’t Ghosts II.”
For those that might not know, Schreier is a well connected and dependable source of rumours with a strong track record of knowing exactly what’s going down in the industry, so if he says it’s not Ghosts II I’d be inclined to take him at his word.
So, if Infinity Ward’s next Call of Duty isn’t Ghosts II, what could it be? Well, the new thinking is that it could well be Modern Warfare 4, which would make sense for a number of reasons.
The first is that Infinity Ward developed the first three Modern Warfare titles, and they’re far and away among some of the most popular Call of Duty games around (especially the first two).
As such, it would make a lot of sense for Activision to keep the momentum 2018’s Black Ops 4 managed to muster for the series following a string of releases that didn’t do so well commercially or critically.
It’d also be a smart – if somewhat safe – move for Infinity Ward’s next Call of Duty game to be something they know is gonna pull in a crowd, following the lukewarm response to their sci-fi tinged last effort, Infinite Warfare.
There’s a strong chance the teases posted by Williams on Twitter could also be a reference to Lieutenant Simon “Ghost” Riley, who wore a skull-patterned balaclava and was a big part of Modern Warfare 2.
Of course, if those Tweets are a reference to Ghost, there’s just as much chance Williams is teasing the long-rumoured Modern Warfare 2 remaster. Activision tends to formally announce Call of Duty games around April/May, so we should expect to hear something concrete then.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.