Next ‘Call of Duty’ is called ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’ in cheap effort to play the hits for fans

The next Call of Duty? The fourth Modern Warfare? Yeah, it’s called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Additionally, it’s a soft reboot of the original, in what’s totally not a cheap ploy to lure gamers back.

Kotaku:

The first Modern Warfare was called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, so it’s only natural that the fourth Modern Warfare is called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Confused yet? That’s video games for you.

News of this year’s strangely named Call of Duty leaked out via YouTuber LongSensation this morning. Activision has been showing the game to press and “influencers” (YouTubers and streamers) for a week or two now, so a leak like this was inevitable. Kotaku has not seen the game or agreed to any embargo, but we’ve heard from many sources connected to the Call of Duty world that it is indeed called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and that it’s a “soft reboot” of the first one, developed by Infinity Ward for release this fall. It’ll be heavy on troubling, realistic emotions, very much inspired by the controversial No Russian campaign in Modern Warfare 2 that allowed the player to gun down civilians.

Kotaku also broke the news on Saturday that Activision’s mega-popular military shooter series has been in flux, with Black Ops studio Treyarch taking over lead development of COD 2020 from Sledgehammer and Raven.

Video games are absurd. We can expect to see more from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare soon (likely next week).