Yesterday we heard all about how jetpacks aren’t coming to Call of Duty 2020, something that I was only vaguely aware was an issue at the time of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3’s release. This was a big issue that developers Treyarch encountered when they changed up the formula for their Call of Duty game, and now that we know they’re making things a bit more grounded for 2020’s release, we thought it would be fun to think about where they could go with the franchise.

Return To World At War

This won’t be everyone’s immediate thought for Call of Duty 2020, but I think it’s important to at least talk about the possibility of a return to the World at War universe within Call of Duty. World at War was a gritty take on World War 2, spanning the entire world, and hosting some of the best missions I’ve ever played in the franchise’s history. Yes, we have had Call of Duty WW2, but as far as I’m concerned that game didn’t do the legacy of World at War justice.

Treyarch could tell a number of stories within a new Call of Duty set around the second world war, but keep things to the same high-octane standard that World at War peaked at and maintained throughout the campaign. The story of World at War was one of the most engrossing in Call of Duty’s history, and there are plenty of similar stories to be told throughout the entire period that game was set. I think what made World at War so good was the way it took Call of Duty Modern Warfare and basically re-skinned it with World War 2 equivalents. With a new version of Modern Warfare having just released, not feels like the perfect time for a retelling of World at War.

Black Ops 5

Treyarch is the Call of Duty developer that created the Black Ops universe. In many ways, this was the series that was responsible for the fast-paced gameplay that players came to love in multiplayer, but it lost its way a bit with Black Ops 4. In the fourth entry in the series, there was no single player, only multiplayer, and no story to really speak of. Part of what made Black Ops and Black Ops 2 so good was the story of a character questioning everything that’s happening, making players think about whether or not all of it is real.

I would love a return to the story-focused Black Ops games. To me they were the peak of Call of Duty, outside of Modern Warfare 2, so anything that sees Sam Worthington reprise his role in the franchise would make my year. I don’t see Treyarch taking this approach, because I think they’re done with the Black Ops games for a while now, but something close to them or a spin off would be fantastic.

Call Of Duty 5

Treyarch are responsible for Call of Duty 2: Big Red One, and Call of Duty 3. Call of Duty 4 took the games to a new level with Modern Warfare, but there’s definitely space for Call of Duty 5, the fifth game in the base series, to return to telling the stories that those original games did. At the time, shooters were focused on one character, or a group of soldiers, and would tell a story that saw those protagonists fight their way from one point to another during a much larger conflict.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy the globe-trotting shooters that we get today, but I feel like we’ve lost something with shooter games now spanning the entire globe. This game could be different to World at War, which spanned the globe, and simply focus on one soldier, or a small group of them. As I already pointed out, there are thousands of interesting stories to be told from World War 1 and 2, and I think that games need to delve back into them and make them a core focus. All too often we’re bombarded with huge stories that are completely fictional, but there’s something incredible about playing through a story that someone lived through that I think would make for an incredible Call of Duty game.

World War 3

Sadly we’re now in a scary time when world War 3 is an actual possibility. While it would be insensitive for Treyarch to make a game about a war that’s happening right now, I think that a fictional World War 3 that they’ve created a history for would make for a really interesting game. This could be actual modern warfare, no sci-fi jetpacks or exo-suits, just people in armour holding guns. I’m not saying this because I think it would be fun, I’m saying it because I think being presented with a reality like that would force people to want nothing more than to prevent a third world war.

I expect we’ll get news about Call of Duty 2020 in the weeks leading up to E3 2020, when the leaks begin to hit. We’ll keep you updated on the game as more information is released.