Nicki Minaj has been working with Call of Duty since the launch of Modern Warfare 2, when she appeared in a live-action promo. Now, nine months later, the star is actually going to appear in-game with a skin and 21 Savage will join her.
This news is not as wild as it might seem. Activision has been using real-world celebrities as skins in Call of Duty for a while now. In Vanguard, we had Snoop Dogg, and so far in MW2 we've already had a few footballers, Kevin Durant, and both TimTheTatman and NICKMERCS.
Remember also that Nicki Minaj has been working with Call of Duty since 2022, so the idea that she would become an Operator was always somewhat predictable.
Nicki Minaj & 21 Savage Coming To Call of Duty, Now Confirmed
We actually knew about Nicki Minaj since the release of the Season 4: Reloaded update a few weeks ago. A dataminer called @HeyImAlaix on Twitter found references to a Nicki Minaj Operator a few hours after the patch went live. But, we now have official confirmation that the Nicki Minaj and also a 21 Savage Operator skin are coming to MW2 and Warzone. The skin will be released at some point during Season 5, we expect 2-3 weeks after the season launches,
The screenshot above is the only picture we have of the skin and the weapon, and the full bundle details haven't been released yet. But that's a Cronen Squall (which is no longer meta).
We expect they might even do a separate trailer for this bundle. They will want to make a lot of sales if they're paying for a collab this big.
For the 21 Savage skin, we don't even have a picture yet... But the Season 5 roadmap already confirmed that he will be released in-season.
Are you a fan of using celebrities for Operator skins? Or do you prefer fictional characters like King Kong and Scream?
At least they've been slowly fixing this issue: