Activision Blizzard has released its big annual report as we move into the new financial year, and the company has made some pretty stark admissions. These mostly relate to last year's Call of Duty release in Vanguard, which the company says "didn't meet out expectations".
As for who's to blame for these shortcomings? Well, refreshingly, Activision mostly blames itself. The Call of Duty publisher says that Vanguard not meeting expectations was "primarily due to our own execution". Basically, the company knows Vanguard was a step down in overall quality.
However, it's not just the quality of the final release that Activision feels is important. The game's World War II setting also takes some of the blame, as the company believes players weren't really after that experience again. Developer Sledgehammer's last CoD game was also set in World War II, with 2017's Call of Duty: WWII.
As for the future of the series, well, Activision will no-doubt be hoping for an uptick in sales and player numbers. 2022's game is returning to one of the series' most popular eras with Modern Warfare II, and given that 2019's Modern Warfare reboot was the most successful CoD of all time, it's hard to believe the sequel won't perform extremely well this holiday season.
What do you make of Activision's comments? Surprised to hear them take most of the blame? Let us know your thoughts!
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[source ign.com]
Comments 16
The game failed to meet stakeholder expectations by at least $300 million apparently according to IGN.
Some people are just tired of Call of Duty games. I haven't played CoD since the 2018 Black Ops game. Every game is the same, there's barely any difference, add the current reputation of Activision and you'll see that it's not exactly a franchise you'd want to support.
This is a problem in modern gaming industry, copy paste games are so common now. FIFA, MLB, NBA, COD, FAR CRY, AC all of these big franchises are just copy paste. Hardly anything innovative.
MW19 and Cold War are both far better. I managed to get a refund on Vanguard after buying it the recent sale. I was thinking it can't really be as bad as ppl are saying, but it was. Hopefully MW222 will be better.
@Chaudy have to disagree there. Massive difference in gameplay experience from MW19 and Cold War. Also try going from Black Ops 3 or 4 to one of those other games and the difference is again quite evident.
No exactly going to blame market interest falling when they’re about to sell the ip are they
A lot of the COD players I know, the ones who are only really interested in MP are quite happy with Warzone.
Turns out people who are happy with a free thing, wont buy a similar thing.
@Nexozi I've had a whirl during a few trial periods and something is just off about it. Weird, I quite liked 2017's WWII to be honest!
@Kezelpaso Yes, I found multiplayer to be really bad. It's been out for how long now and still has so many issues. I'm really hoping for a good enjoyable game this year.
Believe it or not I actually really enjoyed CoD Vanguard... but that may just be since it was the first CoD I've bought and played in a long time.
That said, I know the general consensus online is that the game was underwhelming so I'm happy to see the company actually acknowledge that and blame their higher-ups and lead designers (at least it seems). Activision/Blizzard has a lot of other concerns at the moment though lol.
@Kezelpaso 2017 WWII was the last CoD game I really enjoyed. When I heard Sledgehammer was making Vanguard I was super excited and was hoping for CoD:WWII on steroids. What we got was a buggy incomplete mess. I was so disappointed.
I didn't like MW 2019 and generally don't like Modern settings for FPS and after the disaster that was Vanguard I think I will be skipping this year's CoD and looks like I will be without an FPS for quite some time.
I love the looks of MW2 and Cold War way more than Vanguard. And after the WWII CoD, BF1 and BFV it is getting boring those old weapons.
How does CoD manage a step down in quality? I thought it was already bottom of the barrel?
@CrazyJF I agree, Advance Warfare and Infinite Warfare are the ones I enjoy most and would like to see get sequels. The other problem is any game after these has shrunken down the HUD so much you can barely make out anything in split-screen, killing the fun right there.
@abe_hikura I despise warzone it completely ruined call of duty modern warfare for me
@abe_hikura The problem is Warzone and MP are two totally different things. Yeah it uses the same guns and skins but Warzone is a battle Royale which plays differently then MP. I love MP but can't stand BR which is why I haven't been enjoying CoD the last few years. They put everything into BR and forgot what brought them to the dance.
@Would_you_kindly Agree. While I am glad that BR fans have Warzone it shouldn't cost us MP fans something we enjoy. It's almost that Warzone should be it's own game rather then tacked onto CoD. It would have been like if Respawn made Titanfall 3 and Apex Legends was part of it.
They should almost make one of the studios just work on Warzone while the other two just work on regular CoD.
But sacrificing CoD for Warzone was not a smart move.
@Tasuki It's my favourite one of the last generation. I did like Cold War to a certain extent but stuff like SBMM and the seasonal ranking system put me off a little bit. The core game is fun but, some of the changes made surrounding the gameplay I'm not a big fan of tbh :/
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