Featured Image Credit: Xbox/Activision
We're getting closer to the summer window that traditionally brings some big announcements and trailers for new games from all the biggest publishers, and one big rumor points to an Xbox blockbuster.
When it finally bought Activision Blizzard after a couple of years of regulatory scrutiny, Xbox got the keys to one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world - Call of Duty.
Now it would seem that it's finally going to start taking advantage of that power, with rumors suggesting that it'll get a major games showcase in the diary very soon.
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This is expected to take place sometime in June, based on previous years, and should bring news of exclusives like Avowed and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but will also apparently debut 2024's Call of Duty game.
With an annual release schedule, we'd typically find out what the next COD game is at around that point, so it makes a lot of sense that Xbox would fold it into its presentation.
Plus, there's also the open question of when Xbox is going to bring the older Call of Duty titles that it now owns to its Game Pass membership for free, and it's very possible that it'll kill two birds with one stone this summer.
After all, it would be quite a powerful play to announce both the title and setting of the newest COD game, as well as the fact that it'll come to Game Pass on launch day, but also to follow that up with the arrival of every COD ever released to this point.
In terms of that new COD game, though, the strong expectation is that it'll be a return to the Black Ops series, after a couple of years that have focused on the Modern Warfare franchise.
The game is expected to be called Black Ops Gulf War, following on from the last game, Black Ops Cold War.
Amusingly, if these reports are accurate then the Xbox showcase should be of clear interest to PS5 owners, which it might not otherwise be. After all, during the process of getting its acquisition approved, Xbox was vocal about making promises to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for years to come.
It also talked about trying to bring the series to Nintendo Switch, although there's a very good chance that this instalment will have come too soon to see that ambition realised.
Rather, we'd bet on the return of COD to Nintendo happening when the next Nintendo console itself is released, something that's expected to now take place in 2025.
For now, though, all that remains is to keep an ear to the ground about when Xbox might hold its showcase, and to see just how much COD news it stuffs into that presentation.
