Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare 2 might be coming in 2025, rumour claims

It’s Call Of Duty season once again, which means that people are already speculating about the series’ future rather than concentrating on the game that’s about to ratatat out of the end of Activision Blizzard’s rifle. Ahead of Modern Warfare 2’s eruption on October 28th, rumours are circulating that Sledgehammer Games will return to the near-future world of their 2014 boots-off-the-ground instalment, Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare. COD help us all.

The source for this is Ralph Valve of What If Gaming. Sledgehammer are allegedly planning on releasing a sequel to Advanced Warfare in 2025. Valve (that’s going to get confusing) claims that the relatively cold reception for Call Of Duty: Vanguard, set during World War 2, led to Sledgehammer rethinking their plans to create more games featuring Vanguard’s characters. They revived the Advanced Warfare concept as a result. Valve doesn't mention sources for this claim, but he has leaked accurate information about Modern Warfare 2 before.

Call Of Duty commentators disagree about the legitimacy of Advanced Warfare 2 and its potential timeframe for release. CharlieIntel tweeted that they’d heard nothing to confirm the rumour, and doubted Activision wouldn’t allow a two-year cycle for Treyarch’s Call Of Duty game due in 2024. That one might be a follow-up to Black Ops: Cold War, set in the Gulf War. COD-leaker Hope chimed in to say they could corroborate the Advanced Warfare 2 rumblings, but also raised a question mark over the 2025 window.

We placed Advanced Warfare 15th out of 17 in our Call Of Duty campaign ranking, which is unfortunate. Graham thought the game was “made from chopped-up pieces of better games” in his Advanced Warfare campaign review back in 2014. “Call of Duty has always been about following the beats laid down for you by its creators, but it's never felt so jarring,” he said. “Now that you ostensibly have a toolset which should allow you to pick your own routes, to approach scenarios in your own way as you do in so many other games, being unable to do so feels more than ever like having your robot arms tied behind your back.”

Activision Blizzard are still fielding legal issues and reports alleging workplace discrimination, harassment and poor working conditions. They're also being bought out by Microsoft for $68.7 billion (£60.8 billion), announced back in January. That same month, Blizzard Entertainment head Mike Ybarra said he was committed to fostering change within the company.

Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare is on Steam for £40/$60/€60. Somehow I don’t think Kevin Spacey will be back for the sequel.