Is Call of Duty Returning To Steam?
The mega-popular Call of Duty series has not been on Steam in years, but we noticed some telling clues about its return.
Fans of the critically acclaimed Call of Duty franchise have spotted new artwork from the previously announced Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on the dashboard of Valve’s digital PC storefront. This suggests that Activision’s profit-driving first-person shooter franchise may be returning to Steam four years after the franchise’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 announced the series’ departure from the platform.
According to Destructoid, the new image of veteran character Ghost was first spotted by a Redditor, Kalinine, and has led the gaming community to wonder whether this year’s installment will finally see the franchise return to the Steam Store. It’s important to note that the artwork was subsequently removed from the storefront, so we can’t actually verify any of the claims. But that shouldn’t discredit any of the rumors, especially when we take into consideration everything that’s going on over at Activision Blizzard.
Call of Duty is one of the most successful entertainment franchises of all time, and it has made over $27 billion for Activision since it launched in 2003. Unfortunately for the franchise, though, 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard saw a significantly weaker performance than the series typically receives — the sales were so bad that the game didn’t even make it to the top 15 highest-selling Call of Duty games. So, it’s only natural for Activision to cast its net a little wider this year.
Besides its alleged return to Steam, the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 reboot will also be available via Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher for those interested. Unfortunately, despite revealing the upcoming game’s iconic cast of characters, other details about the game remain scarce. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a sequel to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare — a reboot of 2007’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare video game.
Activision rebooted the original game due to the higher gaming demand of its customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, which turned out to be a masterful move. Compared to the 2007’s original, which sold nearly 16 million copies by 2013, the 2019’s reboot surprised everyone by selling well over 30 million copies of the game — a number that might’ve had something to do with Activision’s decision to create a sequel.
This poses yet another question that we still don’t have an answer to: is the upcoming sequel an original storyline or is it just a reboot/reimagining of 2009’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? Well, as it turns out, the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 is set as a direct sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare and not a reboot. From what we know so far, Infinity Ward promised some innovation in the upcoming game, as well.
We’d like to point out that, as per our previous report, this is the first year in which we won’t get a new Call of Duty game, as it has been the custom for the game’s developers so far. This is actually good news for the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 since the devs will have more time to make something special out of the upcoming release.
