Two of the biggest games in the world, Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, will release together again since 2013. Grand Theft Auto VI and Call of Duty 2025, which is rumored to be a sequel to Black Ops 2, will butt heads as rivals in the gaming market. Today, we discuss the potential conflict both releases will have on each other, as well as a look back to Grand Theft Auto 5 and Call of Duty Ghosts. Ready to see about the future of GTA 6 and COD 2025? Here’s what you need to know:
FLASHBACK TO 2013
There were two giants in the gaming industry releasing a title in Q4 of 2013: Infinity Ward with Call of Duty: Ghosts and Rockstar Games with Grand Theft Auto V. One is infamous for being divisive in it’s player base, and the other being supported and keeping it’s community entertained 11 years later.
What went wrong with Call of Duty: Ghosts? Let’s take away it’s intention to be supported for only 1 year before being replaced by Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare as the main Call of Duty title. What we will be focusing on, is the original Xbox One Event where Call of Duty: Ghosts got it’s time to reveal itself and it’s new systems that separated it from the previous entry, Treyarch’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
There’s a lot Infinity Ward need to bring following in the steps of not just the fan-favorite Black Ops 2, but their previous title, Modern Warfare 3 which was co-developed by Sledgehammer Games who would take over in 2014. The game brought us a new take on the multiplayer experience with Field Orders, Dynamic Map Events, and Operators with different Prestige and Customization that took identity in Call of Duty to a level never-before-seen. What was their heavy-hitter card for that event however? Fish AI.
It’s an infamous moment in Call of Duty history where the Fish AI in a singular Campaign mission was brought to light more than the actual core features of the game. With the release of GTA V 2 months prior, people had to be heavily drawn into the newest Call of Duty title enable to take a break from Los Santos, but unfortunately, the game wouldn’t get the love it deserved until roughly 10 years later.
BLACK OPS 6 IN TROUBLE?
Flash-forward to 2024, and we have a brand new Call of Duty releasing from the fan-favorite studio, Treyarch, Black Ops 6. While at the time of writing this article nothing is confirmed on the identity of the game, it’s almost certainly another Black Ops title to continue the series.
The previous two years have been famed with Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare II and Sledgehammer Games’ Modern Warfare III, of which introduced the concept of a “Carry-Forward” game where all previous operators, weapons, and more carried forward from MWII to MWIII. Due to it’s positive reception, Activision is rumored to be continuing the trend after Black Ops 6 with the next Call of Duty title in 2025 (rumored to be a Black Ops 2 sequel). The issue, however, is the year it releases isn’t just a poetic symbol, but a danger for sales. Rockstar Games is back with the long-awaited next entry of their most popular series, Grand Theft Auto VI.
What does this mean for Call of Duty 2025? Well, enable to tell you this next part, you’ll need insight to the previous Treyarch titles Black Ops 4 and Black Ops Cold War. Great titles in their current state, but both were met with an early pull off for support of the post launch by Treyarch, moving most of the team to either the next game title, or to help with certain aspects of games that weren’t even there’s to develop originally. The games were completed to a degree, but not in the full support they were supposed to be given; Black Ops 6 could meet a similar fate.
Call of Duty 2025, currently has no specific developer that’s publicly known to be working on the title. This means Grand Theft Auto VI could cause Activision to pull Treyarch early, once again, to go full steam on developing the Black Ops 2 Sequel so that it can compete with Grand Theft Auto VI and be on the same level of quality of Black Ops 6, which has supposedly been in development for 4 years; the longest of any Call of Duty title.
BLACK OPS 2025’S SCARY YEAR
If Treyarch gets pulled early off of Black Ops 2025 and do succeed in giving a quality game as prior; will that compete with Grand Theft Auto VI? Let’s look at 2013 once more when GTA Online released prior to Call of Duty: Ghosts.
GTA Online took the gaming community by storm. You had friend groups stop their usual SND weekends to instead explore Los Santos together and get up to mayhem that’s not possible in Call of Duty. It kept players occupied, so occupied that even with the release of a new Call of Duty, people were waiting to hop off the usual 6v6 FPS shooter and return to the streets of Los Santos. This could cause an engagement problem if the concurrent players aren’t as high as MW3, or even Black Ops 6, which could cause Activision to stir and either cut support, or rush out certain content that’s not fully ready yet.
THE END
At the end of the day, GTA VI will in no way “kill COD”, but it will be competition when it comes to concurrent players, especially when GTA Online releases for GTA VI. Call of Duty will still be here even when Grand Theft Auto takes attention away for a bit, and that’s okay. DETONATED will continue to cover Call of Duty, especially if we are busy exploring Vice City along with everyone else; even if that means bouncing back and forth through titles.
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