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A notable Call of Duty leaker claims that the next installment in the first-person shooter series will be titled Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. The military shooter franchise has brought players to various battlegrounds, both historic and futuristic, with annual releases since 2003. Recent rumors suggest that 2022's Call of Duty game will be a sequel to 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which took players to realistic modern battlefields.
2007's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, developed by Infinity Ward, was the first game in the series set outside of World War II. Instead, Modern Warfare adopted a modern-day military setting, focusing on a fictional Middle Eastern country and a civil war in Russia. The highly-successful installment led to two sequels, Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3, as well as other futuristic shooters like Call of Duty: Ghosts and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare served as a reboot of this series subsection, bringing back old heroes from the earlier titles while tackling an entirely new fictional conflict. Rumors claim that Modern Warfare II will involve drug cartels, which may be a big change from the series' typical global scope.
Twitter user Tom Henderson, a video game industry writer and notable leaker, has supported claims that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will be the series' 2022 title. In the tweet, Henderson pokes fun at the multitude of titles in the Modern Warfare sub-series. In order to set itself apart from the 2009 sequel, the upcoming sequel to 2019's Modern Warfare will use Roman numerals rather than numbers. Henderson also expresses that artwork from the game looks particularly good.
Call of Duty's Modern Warfare sub-series has always been beloved by fans, with the 2007 original and its 2019 reboot receiving particular admiration. 2 million players were active in Modern Warfare as of July 2021, which is quite an impressive player count for a two-year old game. This massive popularity likely stems from the contemporary setting of the games, with modern conflicts against Russia and the Middle East being much more directly relatable to gamers than other settings such as World War II. This continued love for Infinity Ward and Modern Warfare makes it easy to believe that Modern Warfare II is coming in 2022.
Tom Henderson is an often reliable source, having leaked details about previous Call of Duty titles as well as the upcoming Battlefield 2042. However, the existence and title of Modern Warfare II is still just a mere rumor until it is confirmed by developers, which will not happen until next year. For fans of modern-day Call of Duty settings, and particularly the world of Modern Warfare, this rumor may spark excitement for what lies after the World War II battlefields of Call of Duty: Vanguard.
Source: Tom Henderson/Twitter