Hunting down your enemies on the bustling streets of Amsterdam, along the U.S.-Mexico border or in a Middle Eastern fishing village is just part of the intense action in the latest Call of Duty video game.
The Friday release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 continues a nearly two-decade run for California-based Activision Blizzard's wildly popular military shooting game franchise. New installments of the game can rival Hollywood's biggest blockbusters in how much they earn on their opening weekend.corporate tug-of-war between
Microsoft has been working to get approval from antitrust regulators in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere to complete “These titles require thousands of game developers and several years to complete, and there are very few other games of similar calibre or popularity,” said a September report from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.
Work on Modern Warfare 2 started before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered Infinity Ward's headquarters outside of Los Angeles, forcing developers to be more creative in how they drew the game's characters, weaponry, motions and scenery and recorded its voices. It was the same studio that in 2003 launched the original Call of Duty, a first-person shooter set during World War II.
The games have gradually grown more visually realistic, interactive and multiplayer in the past two decades. They've also become more contemporary, starting with 2007's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which took the fighting to modern-day settings in the Middle East and Ukraine. Friday's release is a sequel to a popular 2019 game that was itself a refresh of that 2007 game of the same name.
Infinity Ward executives declined to talk about their pending takeover by Microsoft. But Microsoft is increasingly speaking out about what would be the largest-ever tech acquisition, trying to assure regulators that it will keep Call of Duty on the PlayStation “for at least several more years” beyond its current contract with Sony.