Call Of Duty: Blackout 2 Is Not Happening In Black Ops Cold War

The Call of Duty franchise entered the battle royale market with the Blackout mode for Black Ops 4 a few years ago, but it's all about Warzone these days. As such, Treyarch is not developing a sequel to Blackout, the developer has confirmed. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War's battle royale game will be Warzone, and the two titles will feature shared content and progression.

Treyarch's Dan Bunting said in a group interview that he's proud of Blackout and what it did for the Call of Duty franchise, but Warzone is the path forward for the Call of Duty series. Blackout laid the foundation for Warzone, and it wouldn't make sense to go back to Blackout now that Warzone is Call of Duty's premiere battle royale experience.

"Blackout was a great game mode for Black Ops 4. We were extremely proud of it. There were a lot of fans and it was, for the entire franchise ... it was the first time we dipped our toes in the water of doing a battle royale game," Bunting said. "And I think, because it was our first experience, we were all trying to figure things out and try different things. And a lot of the learning we built from the experience playing with that game mode with the community who was engaged in it, helped us to make Warzone a bigger and better experience for a larger population of players. And I think it's been a huge success."

Bunting went on to say that Treyarch's David Vonderhaar told him once that Blackout was a solid first step for Call of Duty in the battle royale space, but Warzone will take the series to "a new place." Warzone and the newly announced Cold War will share content and progression, and the rumor is that Warzone's map will get a Cold War-themed overhaul.

Whatever the case, Bunting said he sees Warzone as a platform, not a game alone, that can help bring in new players to Call of Duty.

"That's part of why everybody in the franchise has really joined together to make this an awesome experience that all of our communities," he said. "Whether you're playing Black Ops or Modern Warfare, can come together and join and play and I think it's an awesome platform to get people interested in games in the series that maybe they hadn't played or been interested in before."

Warzone also allows the Call of Duty developers to communicate directly with fans through in-game mysteries and narrative, Bunting said. He also teased that, with Warzone, the Call of Duty teams can do "totally new things" that the franchise has never seen before.

Activision is mainly talking about Cold War's single-player campaign for now. On September 9, Activision will reveal Cold War's multiplayer mode and detail the Warzone integration further. Details about the fan-favorite Zombies mode, too, are coming at some point in the future.

Black Ops Cold War releases on November 13 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The game will also launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later in the year when those consoles arrive, but won't be free for the standard version of the game.