The next Call of Duty might not have an SP campaign

That's according to Polygon's sources, so who knows. But it sounds like this might be the first game in the series to ditch a SP campaign entirely:

The sources, who asked for anonymity, said that as Black Ops 4’s release date approached, it became evident that development on the single-player campaign wouldn’t be completed. One source said Treyarch has since focused Black Ops 4’s development on expanding multiplayer and the series’ popular Zombies mode. The source described an emphasis on cooperative modes as a potential stand-in for the typical single-player campaign experience.

Maybe it'll have a short campaign (although they're all pretty short to begin with)? I can't say this affects me much, as I don't really buy COD games anymore (the MP doesn't appeal much to me and while I generally enjoy their campaigns, they never quite hit that 10-15 dollar mark on Steam that would make them impulse buys). But it'll be interesting to see if it affects sales at all. I'm sure Activision knows precisely how many people start a new campaign rather than just jumping into multiplayer and I doubt it's that many.

Can't monetize single player and it takes a lot of resources, so it doesn't surprise me.

I in no way approve of this. If true, it will probably be the first COD game I don't buy.

@shivermetimbers: Except...the $60 upfront?

If they can get away with charging 60 bones without a single player campaign, what's to stop them? Plus it looks like they're adding a Battle Royale mode anyway because that trend can't be milked enough. When I say monetize I mean microtransactions and DLC on top of the 60 bones.

Also just read after I posted that (this is a rumor), that they had a single player planned, but scrapped it for being nonsensical. So they did apparently have resources planned for it, so my mistake if true.

Hey, they can get rid of Zombie Mode too, that will save A LOT of time.

I honestly don't see this as a conspiracy to nickle and dime. It is the reality of what player 'use metrics'. When a tiny percentage of your users do not even TRY, they don't even click on the button, that is a WASTE of money. I imagine the story writing, story board planning, animating cut scenes, 'kinesthetic capture' of live actors, additional voice actors, and then testing all that content that 1/100 of your audience seeing is pointless....and expensive. I can easily see the campaigning mode taking up 70% of the budget costs. I'm sur ethey paid less for Josh Duhamel and Bella Dayne, but I bet everything else cost the same or more.

This very well could be - use it or lose it. If most players don't play that mode...why make it when its the most expensive bit?

Well, okay. I won't buy it (actually, I can enjoy Call of Duty campaigns, but I rarely buy them, at least entirely: my brother does, which means I play them [except for WWII's which was boring]). Kind of glad; show them that they don't get my support. I hope it doesn't do well! What? Yep, I hope they fail. Let's be realistic, they should take the multiplayer out and focus on a really good campaign. Ha. Mwahaha. Yes. Yes, my little one. Very well... Very. Well. Okay, in all seriousness now, that is really disappointing though, and I was serious about hoping the fatigue has settled in further. It makes sense though since a lot of people play Call of Duty for the multiplayer, even though they could just play the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that to get their fix... Now that I think about it, is this the reason why they're putting MW2 remaster out without its multiplayer?

Oh, I don't disagree with your last two sentences. It's probably smart that they didn't make a campaign from a financial standpoint. They've tried hiring Hollywood talent to hype these games up, but I don't think it's necessary anymore, especially when they can put those resources into something that can make them more money down the line. I don't mean to sound cynical, it's just the way things are.

This makes sense to me. Why include a mode that has the lowest impact on sales? Especially if they are actually trying to go multiplayer focused with the battle royale mode. No real need to course-correct for them until it starts affecting revenue. And if they use that extra time and attention to make enhancements to the multiplayer, then that's actually kind of exciting. I haven't bought a CoD since Advanced Warfare. This could potentially bring me back.

Hmm. With a user base the size of CoD I can't imagine that would play out well.

I haven't played much CoD but recently bought Infinite Warfare and played through the campaign and thought it was really great. I know there was a lot of backlash against Infinite Warfare from the fanbase but that was a really solid military science fiction story and fun to play. So if they're not going back to that setting and not doing anymore single player I don't have much interest in trying any more games in the series.

I've been saying they should do this for years. I haven't finished a CoD campaign since Black Ops 2. And it's not because I don't like them - I actually liked what I played of Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare's campaigns. It's just that when I turn the game on and decide which mode to play, it isn't usually the offline single player. Just scrap the single player, bring back the Spec Ops game mode with their usual competitive online stuff and I'm in there.

So much for my long tradition of renting CoD, playing through the campaign in a day, and returning.

I actually really like the single player campaigns, so this is a bummer. I thought the WW2 campaign was pretty cool to live through some of the battles I've read about.

I don't actually know if this will make for a better or worse game, but after that explosion over "the death of singleplayer" last year this report doesn't feel too great.

Considering that I buy the games exclusively for the campaigns (I don't have a lot of time to play games anymore, and doing the same dozen maps over and over for hours on end against a random stream of cussing internet peeps is not how I prefer to spend what time I do have), I'll just pass on this one. *shrug*

A shame, too. Black Ops 3 had a great, bizarre story (marred by the fact that the fast-scrolling intel at the start of each level wasn't unlocked to read at your leisure when you beat the game. It totally flips the story on its head in a great way, but you have to go to a virus laden wikia site to read it). I spent 16 hours milling around that campaign, replaying multiple levels, and totally felt like I got my money's worth. Heck, I liked Infinite War's campaign too... even if it was a bit like a severely compressed, truncated Halo-meets-Mass-Effect. Spent 8 hours playing that campaign and going back for some collectibles, and I regret nothing. Oh, and don't get me started on Call of Duty: Black Ops and Call of Duty: World at War. I'll throw so much effusive praise at you about them that you'll gag.

Taking out Black Ops 4's campaign and leaving me with a zombie mode I won't play, a dozen multiplayer maps I won't use, and maybe a few co-op missions is a great way to save me $60.00. :-/

Edit Addition: Oh, and I bought Call of Duty: World War II for the campaign too. I just haven't had the chance to get to it yet (classes, work, and life). I also bought all the old Call of Duties that had dead multiplayers during one of their rare Steam sales a few years back and played through almost all of them. This will literally be the first one I'll just skip entirely, assuming the rumors are true.

The kids love the battle royal (for at least another 6 months anyway). Activision are probably desperate to get a dog in the fight. Personally I'm pretty spent of COD, couldn't even be bothered to finish the campaign of BLOPs 3 (the last one I played), and I pretty much loved nearly every game before. MW 1-3 is in my humble opinion, a triumph of story telling and memorable character creation, and BLOPs 1 and 2 are very good contenders also.

Its the combination of cinematic game play and really strong multiplayer made those games great for me, but it would appear that is not what audience wants.

Be genuinely interested to know do kids between the ages of 12 - 15 have any interest in single player games full stop, between a possible age gate (on the more mature narrative front) and a lack of competition or co-operation, maybe the idea of playing a game on their own bores the shit out them?

Maybe they'll bundle it with the Modern Warfare 2 remaster which will only be single player.

This makes my interest in the game drop to zero, but I didn't play the last 4-5 of them either, so I guess that doesn't mean much.

I would not buy, but I am also not a big fan of the series.

This makes the Moder Warfare 2 remaster being SP only make more sense. If you want to play a campaign you have that otherwise heres the part you really bought this for. (MP).

That's a shame. One less single-player shooter to play, though I already skipped on WW2.

I get why they would do this but it’s a shame. I’m usually more interested in the campaign than the multiplayer and Treyarch have made some bangers in the past. I’ll be curious to see how this works out for them, though — most people seem to think there won’t be any backlash but I bet EA thought the same about Titanfall and Battlefront when they shipped without a campaign.

Makes sense, I just hope they put a lot more maps and other stuff in multiplayer. I play with a group or people and I'm usually the only one that even touches the single player. Combine this with the fact that the campaigns have been very hit and miss since ghosts and this is 100% the right business move.

edit: hmmmm, looking at my trophies 25% of people completed the campaign. That's higher than I expected; maybe this will affect sales if true. But even if it does, take all 25% of those people (i'm buying the game for multiplayer so its obviously not going to be all) and take out the cost of the campaign and they probably would still be up $.

This just confirms that i'm not a Call of Duty person. I played MW2 and had a good time with it, but not even pressing the singleplayer button in a full priced game sounds like madness to me.

Call of Duty WW2's campaign was hot garbage, first CoD campaign I've skipped....probably since the original CoD. And in the end...I didn't miss it. Ultimately no loss for me here, if the multiplayer is good I'll be back on board.

This means they can save money getting actors in, then. Unless they're in zombies. Next logical step is CoD as a service. Before finally CoD going free to play. All the while Activision wonders why sales continue to drop.

I've not really been on board for picking up Call Of Duty for a while. Yet I tend to at least rent them each time to see what campaign they cooked up. So if they did get rid of it I won't have much of a reason to check it out. Might have been worth scaling back the budget for the campaign instead of getting rid of it entirely. But maybe the metrics do say that no one really plays the story mode anymore.

I hope that they get around to providing a campaign as Black Ops was the campaign that a majority of Call of Duty fans liked and the one that shakes up the series. CoD 2 having branching story lines and a RTS mode anyone?

They've been splitting up the multi-player, zombies and single player portions for a while so I'm hoping this is what will happen with this game too rather than no campaign at all. A while back Humble Bundle had a Blops 3 multi-player starter pack in their monthly bundle so this is where my hopes come from.