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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare turns two this year, but it still has a considerable player count in spite of its age. Despite the fact that most players tend to move on from the previous year's Call of Duty once the next one releases, Modern Warfare has managed to retain a healthy playerbase that ensures it will likely stay alive until Infinity Ward releases the next entry in the franchise.
Although Warzone has largely taken focus for Activision, the 2019 reboot of the Call of Duty sub-franchise remains popular. The game received high praise upon release for taking the series back to basics without leaning too hard on nostalgia. It was a natural evolution while still remaining true to the series, which is likely why many people are so attached to the game. The series was starting to lose some fans as it began to shift toward futuristic titles, but Modern Warfare brought it back down to Earth.
To date, according to PlayerCounter.com (via CharlieIntel), Modern Warfare has about 2,000,000 active players. It's not clear how accurate this counter is or if it's just pulling from PC, as it's unclear how it would be able to pull from consoles without having that data already available. That said, Modern Warfare is still supported by Infinity Ward, so it's not hard to imagine some of the recently added maps have helped give the player count a healthy boost. Not to mention, its link to Warzone also encourages players to level up weapons within the base game to bring back into the battle royale.
To date, Modern Warfare is in the top 20 best selling games of all-time, so it definitely has a lot of potential players. With over 30,000,000 copies sold, it's safe to say that the game was a success for the long-running shooter franchise. This will likely also bode well for its heavily-rumored sequel, which will likely release in 2022. As of now, not much is known about the next entry in the annual series.
Two of the minds behind Modern Warfare left Infinity Ward earlier this year, and it remains to be seen how much this will actually impact the sequel when and if it releases. If these figures are to be believed, though, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare still has a following, which would be a good thing to build on if the rumors of a sequel are true.
Source: PlayerCounter (via CharlieIntel)