Sources: Call of Duty 2022 is Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2
Codenamed Project Cortez.
Call of Duty 2022 is Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2, various sources have reported.
"Project Cortez" was spotted in today's leaked list of titles datamined from Nvidia's GeForce Now.
It's down as developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision.
VGC reports this is Modern Warfare 2, the follow-up to Infinity Ward's 2019 Modern Warfare soft reboot. Eurogamer sources back this up.
VGC also reports Modern Warfare 2's campaign revolves around US special forces fighting Colombian drug cartels. Eurogamer sources also back this up.
"Project Cortez" is apparently a reference to the Colonel Felix Cortez character from 1994 action thriller Clear and Present Danger, which has a similar premise.
The news comes two months after the State of California sued Activision Blizzard over what it alleges to be a "frat boy" culture that created "a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women".
The lawsuit alleges a culture of "constant sexual harassment", mainly at Blizzard Entertainment, the maker of World of Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch.
A coalition of workers from across multiple Activision Blizzard studios, collectively called the ABK Workers Alliance, has already criticised the decision to hire WilmerHale - the same law firm helping Amazon keep its workers from unionising - to review the company.
Even an Activision Blizzard shareholder has hit out at the company's response to the discrimination lawsuit.
Sledgehammer addressed the recent Activision Blizzard allegations while announcing the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard.
The demands of the ABK Workers Alliance have still not been met, the organisation has said.
Modern Warfare 2 as next year's Call of Duty comes as little surprise, given it will be three years since Modern Warfare came out and there are many story threads left hanging.
Since then, free-to-play battle royale Warzone, currently driven by Raven, has exploded in popularity. Last year Treyarch released Black Ops Cold War, and this year Sledgehammer is set to release World War 2 shooter Vanguard.
Warzone's original map, Verdansk, is no more - and it's not coming back. A World War 2-themed map set in the Pacific theatre of war launches later this year to tie in with Vanguard. I suspect Warzone will launch a brand new map set in the present day or in the near future that continues Captain Price's story when the time comes for Modern Warfare 2 to launch.