‘Call Of Duty’ 2020 Is Being Teased To Death And Enough Is Enough Already

Activision is taking a new approach to revealing the next big Call Of Duty game.

The 2020 entry, ostensibly titled Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, has yet to be officially unveiled, though leaks and rumors have stuck to it like flies.

In a recent investor’s briefing, Activision said that Warzone—the free-to-play battle royale game attached to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and all upcoming Call Of Duty games—has made the company rethink its reveal strategy for this year’s Call Of Duty.

Previously, Activision would reveal the year’s upcoming game earlier in the year, typically with an announcement and a trailer. This year the approach is radically different.

For one thing, in any other year we would have known about the new game months ago. At least by May we’d have a title, trailer and more than likely a release date. And while leaks have given us the title and at least a release window, we still have no official trailer or gameplay footage.

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Instead, we have endless teasers. Almost every day now we have some new teaser popping up, with coordinates to a bunker in Warzone or some mysterious note or footage or projector slide.

And it’s getting old.

I love a good puzzle. I love a handful of teasers to keep gamers guessing before a big reveal. The occasional countdown timer or series of cryptic images. A mystery can be fun. It just stops being fun when it’s dragged on too long, and when we all pretty much know what the game is going to be already anyways.

The Call Of Duty community is largely aware that the next game is a return to the Black Ops universe and that it will be set during the Cold War, likely during Vietnam or at least partly during that war. It’s possible it will span several years or even several decades—Black Ops 2 jumped back and forth between two different eras, after all.

How long can you really drag out teasers for a known secret? Not this long, that’s for sure. For some in the community, solving this extended puzzle is probably a lot of fun, but for many it just starts to feel like Activision and Treyarch simply aren’t ready to show off a game that’s supposedly releasing in just a couple months.

If you want to follow the ongoing ARG/puzzle head over to the website pawntakespawn.com/TV. Personally, while I appreciate the creativity that goes into these, I’d rather just have the game announced with little or no fanfare at all. I think EA and Respawn did a great job revealing Apex Legends completely out of the blue, with a bunch of top streamers showing it off at launch. I just have very little interest in watching tape after tape of old footage to find hidden numbers and secret coordinates.

What’s your take on all this? Is this something you enjoy or would you rather just see the game in action? Let me know on Twitter or Facebook.