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Treyarch rumored to be taking on Call of Duty 2020 development

Next year's Call of Duty is reported to be under massive restructuring as Activision relieves Raven and Sledgehammer of leadership role.

Donovan Erskine

May 18, 2019 3:50 PM

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It's being reporting that Call of Duty 2020 is in an “upheaval” as Treyarch takes the reins from Sledgehammer and Raven. The rumor states that Activision, the publisher behind the iconic first-person shooter franchise informed its teams of developers this week of the change. Call of Duty 2020 will supposedly now be the fifth installment in the Black Ops series, set during the Cold War.

This report from Kotaku comes before we’ve gotten any official word on this years Call of Duty, though it’s been heavily rumored to be a new Modern Warfare. In fact, it’s important to remember that none of the information in this story has been officially confirmed or commented on by Activision, so treat everything here as a rumor.

The piece from Jason Schreier goes into further detail on the inner workings of Call of Duty 2020. Apparently, Black Ops 5 will have a campaign mode, which Sledgehammer and Raven have been relegated to working on. The work done on next year’s CoD won’t be getting scrapped in its entirety, but will instead be merged with Treyarch’s creative vision going forward. Something interesting to note here is that the game is said to be set in the Cold War. All of the Black Ops games have enjoyed futuristic sci-fi settings, except for Black Ops 1, which took place during the latter half of… the Cold War. Perhaps Black Ops 5 will work as a prequel, weaving into the events of the first game.

The Call of Duty series has been on a three studio development cycle ever since Sledgehammer jumped into the mix with 2014’s Advanced Warfare. They were also the lead on 2017’s Call of Duty: WWII. However, Kotaku’s sources claim that Raven was going to be taking more of a creative lead with next year’s game, but that’s all gone down the drain. It’s highly unlikely that this behind the scenes shakeup will have any impact on Infinity Ward’s title releasing this fall, but will be fascinating to see how things shake out with the Call of Duty franchise as more information becomes available.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_