During Activision Blizzard Q4 Investor Call, the company commented a bit on what’s coming to their overall franchises for 2020.

An investor asked Activision during the call how the changes to Modern Warfare’s revenue systems — the removal of the Season Pass and new Battle Pass system — has affected player engagement and revenue.




Activision President Rob Kostich answered this question describing the new features they brought to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and hinted at surprises to come this year.

“Our intent was just to create a better overall experience for our player community, and we think we’ve done that,” says Kostich.




“The first big thing we did was bring in cross play and cross progression enabling friends that play together no matter what platform they are on. In the case of Modern Warfare, it’s just great to see players come back together after so many years of experience in the franchise in the past.”

He commented then on the Season Pass being removed, which has led to no longer splitting the community anymore in Call of Duty. Kostich also says that player engagement is up year over year.




“Now with season pass, we wanted to do something similar. So instead of certain portions of the audience having certain content, we’re focused now on free content for the entire community to drive engagement with the overall community. We are focusing on the new battle pass and item shop system in the game to give players more transparency to the content they can obtain, focusing on more cosmetic content. The best way to judge all of it is just what the player behavior and what’s the community saying. Our engagement is up significantly year-over-year, and that’s really great for us to see so many people enjoying and playing this fantastic game.”

“And then on the player investment side, I’d say fans certainly seem to be appreciating the new system quite a bit. We mentioned kind of the growth year-on-year, but one other thing I might add is that, we’re also see an increased attach rates in game to the new system, which I think is a very, very positive sign for us. And for us, this all signals to a really healthy ecosystem within Modern Warfare, one that we think w can build on and create momentum with our community.”




Kostich then has hinted that 2020 will be a big year for Call of Duty overall with an increase in player base to the franchise and great new content to come.

“It’s really on us from now to really build great content, which we intend to do for the long haul on this game. A great pipeline of content is coming starting with Season 2 next week. And we have some surprises in store beyond that. So I’d say overall, what we expect is a healthier Call of Duty in 2020 versus the previous year. And we look forward to sharing more in the future.”




Activision has not said what the “great pipeline of content” is for Season 2 in Modern Warfare yet. Season 2 begins on February 11 for the game.

In regards to the surprises, there’s no information as to what that means yet. It could be the long rumored Battle Royale mode, or something else.