‘Call of Duty’ Is Retiring ‘Black Ops’ & ‘Modern Warfare’ For 2027

While Activision gears up to launch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 on October 23, 2026 — a Korean Peninsula-set campaign following a vengeful Captain Price — attention is already turning to what comes next. And according to a growing pile of leaks, “next” won’t look like anything fans have played in years.

Multiple outlets, citing longtime Call of Duty insider TheGhostOfHope, report that the franchise’s 2027 entry will abandon the Black Ops and Modern Warfare branding entirely in favor of a brand-new sub-series developed by Sledgehammer Games.

It would be the first non-Black Ops, non-Modern Warfare mainline title in five years. Russian outlet GameGPU was among the first to detail the shift, describing a game built “with the hardware capabilities of the next generation of consoles in mind.”

The reported gameplay changes are just as notable as the rebrand.

The 2027 title will carry over the Omnimovement system introduced in Black Ops 6 and 7, drop tactical sprint entirely, and skip a Zombies mode for the first time in years — leaning instead into movement-heavy, close-quarters, parkour-inspired combat. Whether the classic Pick 10 loadout system returns is reportedly still being discussed internally.

Where exactly the game is set has become the murkier detail. Wccftech initially reported the new sub-series would jump back to the late 1990s or early 2000s, breaking from the modern-day setting Call of Duty has leaned on for years. CharlieIntel later disputed that timeline, maintaining the game is still set in the modern era — a claim that lines up with TheGhostOfHope’s original July 2025 posts describing a “completely new subfranchise” set during “the Modern era,” with no jetpacks but movement as a central focus.

The timing tracks with Activision’s own recent moves. Treyarch’s Black Ops 7 reportedly underperformed, and the publisher has since confirmed it’s stepping away from releasing back-to-back titles within the same sub-series — a structural shift that opens the door for exactly this kind of reset.

None of it is official yet. Activision hasn’t confirmed a 2027 title, a developer, or a name, and leaks about Call of Duty’s next few years have shifted before. But with Modern Warfare 4 arriving in October and next-gen hardware on the horizon, a genuine break from the franchise’s two most dominant sub-series would be Call of Duty‘s biggest identity shift in half a decade.