Activision’s CEO recently said that the company hopes to do more in the future when it comes to unifying Call of Duty players across various games in the franchise.
Speaking to GameInformer, CEO Eric Hirshberg first discussed the annual release tradition of Call of Duty and said that they’re completely fine with continuing that trend. Hirshberg was asked if Call of Duty had considered transitioning into a game-as-service model instead of yearly installments and said that the model works, but he wants to bring players together with each game.
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“I think on Call of Duty, we actually have a system that works with the annual release, but I think there’s more we can do to unify the player no matter where they’re playing,” Hirshberg told Gameinformer. “You’re seeing us now starting to have some success with releasing content wherever players are. You just saw us release a big zombie pack in the Black Ops III community, and that game is two-and-a-half years past its launch, but it’s super ‘sticky’ and there’s still a passionate group of players playing it, so we want to be wherever players are and we want to provide great content wherever players are, so we’re starting to have some success with that.”
With an annual release expected each year, Hirshberg knows that players will likely move on to the next game when it’s released, at least for a while. He commented that some Call of Duty players will return to older games to join their friend groups in multiplayer matches after trying new game, but ideally, each game will be something that dedicated fans can enjoy.
“There are people who shift into the new game and never look back,” Hirshberg said. “I think that our goal is to not necessarily completely reinvent the things that are working, but to make the experience for ‘I’m a Call of Duty player, I like multiple titles within the franchise’ – make that experience better, create more benefits for being a loyal player, those are things that we’re working on and trying to improve.”
Call of Duty: WWII‘s beta is currently live on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and the game is scheduled for a Nov. 3 release.
