New rumors suggest Call of Duty 2021's multiplayer is in such bad shape, a remaster of Modern Warfare 2's could act as a substitute.
Despite the team behind the Call of Duty games being busier than ever before, Activision has confirmed the franchise will still get a new game later this year. However, rumors suggest all is not well behind the scenes. Despite the addition of Toys for Bob to the Warzone development team, the workload is still so massive that Call of Duty 2021 may suffer because of it.
Something might have to be sacrificed, and according to industry insider Jeff Grubb, that something might be CoD 2021's multiplayer. Grubb claims this year's CoD game won't have a multiplayer mode at all. A bold move on the surface since that has arguably been the most appealing part of the franchise for the past decade. It does now have Warzone to fall back on in that arena, though.
Grubb does add that Activision might not rely on the popularity of Warzone alone. There have been rumors Modern Warfare 2's multiplayer could act as a substitute. The multiplayer talk starts around the 24-minute mark in the video below, in which Grubb hammers home that these are just rumors at this stage. The PS3 and Xbox 360 game's multiplayer was one of the most iconic in the franchise's history. There was an air of disappointment among the CoD community when MW2's previous remaster didn't include it.
There have already been reports the next CoD game will return to the Modern Warfare engine. Plus, if Activision does opt to use this tactic, it makes sense on a number of fronts. It takes mounting pressure off of multiple development teams while giving CoD fans something they have wanted for years. It could also be released as a separate game or add-on and odds are very few people would complain about having to pay the extra.
Activision has had the luxury of releasing its last two games without having to worry about competition from Battlefield. As was officially revealed this week, that will not be the case this year. Battlefield 6 will release before the end of 2021, probably at about the same time as Call of Duty 2021. That game being packaged with an MW2 multiplayer remaster could give it an even bigger advantage over its competition than it already has.