Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Achieves Biggest Release in Franchise History
Even though it has been around for nearly two decades, the Call of Duty franchise is still finding new ways to smash previous records. While every new Call of Duty installment is typically massive in its own way, 2011's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the entry in the franchise that has long been considered the high point of the series in terms of first-week sales. As of this weekend, though, that is no longer true as the latest Call of Duty game has now set a new record.
Announced by Activision today in a press release, 2022's version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has now achieved the biggest launch in the history of the Call of Duty franchise. Within its first three days of availability, Modern Warfare 2 brought in over $800 million for Activision. Not only does this achievement set a new record for the Call of Duty series, but it's also now become the biggest launch of any entertainment medium in 2022.
"Thank you, Call of Duty players, for making Modern Warfare II's launch one for the record books as well as the highest grossing entertainment opening of the year," said Call of Duty GM Johanna Faries in an accompanying statement. "It is our honor and privilege to deliver such a historic launch weekend for the best fans in the world. As amazing as this opening has been, Call of Duty has much more in store. An unprecedented level of support for the Modern Warfare universe is on the horizon and Warzone 2.0's launch is right around the corner. It's an incredible time for the franchise."
In a general sense, it's not that shocking that Modern Warfare 2 has been such a massive success out of the gate. 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was widely considered one of the best installments in the series over the past couple of years, so it seemed natural that excitement for the sequel would be high. Not to mention, MW2 also had the privilege of launching on both last-gen and current-gen platforms (in addition to Steam), which is something that many previous entries haven't had the benefit of. As such, Modern Warfare 2 just had a larger install base to reach which only helped it become this successful.
Are you surprised to see that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is doing this well? And have you played the game for yourself yet? Let me know either down in the comments or message me on Twitter at @MooreMan12.