Call of Duty has been one of the most successful long-running series to ever exist. It has modified the first-person shooter experience to the form we are familiar with today. Modern Warfare is undoubtedly their most successful series, and every game from 2009’s Modern Warfare 2 to 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot is astounding. The upcoming Call of Duty 2022 is rumored to be a direct sequel to 2019’s Modern Warfare, and rumors surrounding this upcoming game are everywhere on the internet. It barely has been a month since Call of Duty: Vanguard came out, and players are already speculating this upcoming game in the franchise.
At the end of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2019, we saw General Shepherd “pull the files you (Captain Price) asked for” to form Task Force 141. This inadvertently hinted at the comeback of the infamous character in the next Modern Warfare game. Amidst all of Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard, it is quite easy to forget that the return of General Shepherd has been hinted at before.
Twitter leaker by the username @RalphsValve took to the platform for another confirmation of the same. He is the same leaker who confirmed the comeback of Favela and Highrise maps in the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II (2022). He also confirmed the game will have determinant decisions. Besides that, it is also rumored to have psychological effects of distressing situations, which sounds great. Very few games have done these before.
Besides the return of General Shepherd, it was also confirmed that Barry Sloane would return as Captain Price, and some other classic Task Force 141 characters like Simon “Ghost” Riley, John “Soap” Mactavish, and Sergeant Gary “Roach” Sanderson. All these characters were individually playable in the previous Call of Duty games and have had their sweet screen time and character development.
The upcoming title is rumored to sport a massively improved AI (Artificial Intelligence). “AI will react realistically to bullet wounds, depending on where they’ve been shot, their body will recoil back authentically,” were the words of @RalphsValve. This sounds genuinely promising and will be something to look forward to in the next title. He also stated that if the AI enemies run out of ammo, they will charge the players with the butt of their guns, or even pull for a knife. Enemies will also call out their teammates during combat, which is something seldom seen in any FPS game so far.
All these rumors make the setting and campaign of this upcoming title a very interesting one. Although, developers Infinity Ward and publishers Activision are rather quiet about their upcoming game as they are busy with Vanguard and the recent broken state of Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare. But, Video Games Chronicle and renowned leaker and industry insider Tom Henderson agree on lots of these points, which sounds promising.