Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is finally here, and is already winning over the heart of critics. And, if recent data from analytics firm M Science is anything to go by, it could be one of the best-selling games in the entire series.
M Science is a data-driven research and analytics firm. It regularly compiles gaming industry reports, giving investors a snapshot of how the top companies and games are performing. Exact figures need to remain anonymous – only subscribers are privy to those valuable numbers – but we're able to report the overall trends the team has discovered.
In the case of Black Ops Cold War, analysts at M Science "expect the launch of Black Ops Cold War to outperform the Modern Warfare release at launch." The report continues, "We observe digital presales on console up ~33% versus the prior release and PC presales that are approximately double those of Modern Warfare."
Since the release of Modern Warfare, the Call of Duty community has only continued to grow. M Science said, "We are optimistic about the potential for Black Ops Cold War to grow relative to Modern Warfare at launch, and this is predominately a function of the expansion that has occurred to the Call of Duty base throughout this year, with free-to-play Warzone coinciding with sheltering. This likely results, in our view, to Call of Duty being delivered into a larger interested player pool this year."
There's no denying that Warzone has seen explosive growth since launch and, with it, so too has the Call of Duty franchise. Even if you didn't play Modern Warfare, it's very possible you dipped your toes into the free-to-play waters of Warzone. As the Call of Duty brand grew over the past year, projections seem to have become more favorable for Black Ops Cold War.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is now available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. A few adjustments have been made to the game from its last playtest, including a nerf to the overpowered sliding mechanic.
Source: M Science