A former Call of Duty developer is wondering the same thing you are: if the franchise — which has released 21 mainline installments since 2003 — has run out of ideas.
“It’s almost like The Simpsons — it’s been around so long that it feels like they’ve run out of ideas at times. It kind of wandered into left field,” Chance Glasco told an Oklahoma news station on Monday. Glasco is one of the founders of Infinity Ward and helped co-create the franchise with 2003’s Call of Duty.
There’s a chance Glasco worked on your favorite COD game; Infinity Ward was responsible for series standouts like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. “I wouldn’t say it peaked at Modern Warfare 2, but that was probably the best game we made,” Glasco said.
While the series may or may not have peaked with MW2 (though anyone who misses running around with a silenced UMP45 might say it did — *raises hand*), there’s no arguing the Call of Duty of today is massively different than the Call of Duty of prior hardware generations. You may look at Squid Game and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossovers and think they’re cool, but longtime players might see them as signs the annual franchise is running out of steam in the “fresh gameplay ideas and innovation” department. Glasco clearly shares some of that sentiment.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is the latest entry in the franchise, and it being the sixth BLOPS should tell you all you need to know about whether Call of Duty is running out of ideas or if that even matters. Consider: the game had the best launch for the series, and was, of course, the best-selling game of 2024.
Perhaps the most innovative Call of Duty has been is with the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. The battle-royale gameplay was a slight shift from the series’ classic multiplayer gameplay, and launching in March 2020 certainly helped boost its popularity. And yet. “These days, I don’t play much outside of Warzone,” Glasco said. You and plenty others, Glasco.
Just like people are still going to watch The Simpsons, regardless of its varying levels of quality, people are still going to play whatever Call of Duty launches this fall. Regardless of its quality — or innovative ideas.
