I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I think I know how Call of Duty needs to change to be better for the future. Obviously, the first think that needs to happen is for Bobby Kotick to go. He needs to be removed from Activision Blizzard. The company is unsupportable while it continues to protect him, and I’ll never buy a Call of Duty game again while he’s there. I imagine many others feel the same, as was reflected in the sales of Call of Duty: Vanguard. However, there’s more to improve the franchise and evolve it.
First, every new release needs to stop having a campaign, zombies, and multiplayer mode each. The multiplayer should be dropped in favour of an update to Warzone. This could be charged as an expansion like any MMO. That way, players can invest their money where they’ll spend their time. If all you care about is multiplayer, then buy the Warzone update that’s themed around the new campaign. You get everything you want and no restrictions about playing the campaign. You also don’t feel like you’re wasting time in a mode you don’t care about.
Zombies should be it’s own standalone free-to-play game like Warzone. As I’ve just suggested, update it with new content each year when the new campaign releases. This means that, again, you get what you want without needing to pay a huge price tage. You can also let one developer handle each piece of the pie, meaning that there’s some consistency between it all that means it works incredibly well.
Finally, have the campaigns as standalone releases. Let developers create incredible single player experiences with side missions, collectibles, challenge modes, and all that good stuff. Don’t force everyone to spend a huge amount on a yearly release when they don’t care about all of it. You could offer each part individually, but also bundle them together for players who want all three expansions across the other two games. It makes way more sense, generates the same amount of money, and will make for a much better franchise overall. Please, let this become the norm.