Let's be honest, Call of Duty needs to reorganize its now-outdated model. And, thanks to a revealing survey, there's one part of the franchise we now know they plan to drop: non-Zombies co-op.
Zombies blows the other CoD co-op experiences out of the water, we'll admit that. And so this news shouldn't be surprising to anyone really. Warzone is clearly the focus going forward, and so they have to start making cuts somewhere.
How Much Do We Really Play Non-Zombies Co-Op?
That was basically what this survey was trying to ask. How much do we actually play the co-op experiences that aren't Zombies - the Spec Ops and Survival modes?
At the start of the survey, you're asked what platforms you play and how much you play, just so they get a sense of what kind of gamer you are. Then you're asked to pick which Call of Duty games you've played and for how long. And then the true purpose of the survey reveals itself.
All subsequent questions are trying to determine how much of the co-op content you ever played from Infinity Ward-developed CoD titles. These are the Modern Warfare games, in other words, the games that don't have Zombies but did something else for co-op like spec-ops missions.
It makes complete sense, they're beginning to question how much they even need a co-op experience in those games. No co-op experience besides Zombies has ever really taken off for CoD.
Perhaps you've got time to enjoy a quick CoD catch up while you're here:
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- Leak: Warzone Pacific Map Release Date
- Warzone: The Best MAC-10 Setup & Loadout
How Might They Re-Organize Call of Duty?
At the moment, Call of Duty is produced by three developers: Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and Sledgehammer. Each year, one of the three studios releases a game. This way, each developer gets three years in between each release to make their next game. But that assumes they're all equal, and they're not - here's what they're known for:
- Infinity Ward: The king of the three, really. They've made the most successful games, and they built the foundations of Warzone. But they've always struggled with co-op.
- Treyarch: They have a more cartoony aesthetic in their games, and are known for the divisive era of 'Jetpack CoDs'. They made zombies, it's beloved by the fanbase, and they can always be relied upon to do it well.
- Sledgehammer: These are the smallest of the three and so far, they haven't had great commercial success, relying on their partner studios quite a bit. But they have shown they can do campaigns and more objective-based multiplayer experiences really well.
They all excel at different things, so making them work independently on games usually means that CoDs always suffer in one area. And Warzone has made the older CoD model even more unsustainable because now the biggest product they do is a constant game as a service.
Here's what they might consider. If they turn Zombies and Zombies-adjacent experiences into a single, ongoing, service - like Warzone - then that frees Treyarch to go wild with what they're best at. While Infinity Ward could take over the multiplayer experiences alongside Warzone each year, and Sledgehammer could be put to use focusing entirely on Warzone, and especially the creation of more regular new maps.
Let's see what they announce, but don't expect these changes for years to come.
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