A Fan's Take on How 'Call of Duty' Can Get Its Groove Back

It is no secret that Call of Duty (COD), particularly its Warzone battle royale (BR), is struggling to maintain a robust player base after the series flooded the market with substandard titles, ignored lingering glitches, and leaned hard into crossovers with Fortnite-style skins that many gamers feel make a mockery of the storied franchise.

It still averages a healthy concurrent players across all platforms. With estimates suggesting Steam and Battle.net account for less than 70 percent of the game’s total base, COD's PC player base is a sliver of Warzone's total audience. However, specific to Steam/Battle.net, through the lens of max count, we're looking at a drop-off from a 491,670-player ceiling in December 2022 to just 73,947 three years later and a low of 58,767 in January this year.

The last 30 days on Steam show a slight rebound to a smidge more than 66k on the high end. When Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 (BO7) dropped last November, bookended by free weeks, the 100,332 Steam gamers marked the highest one-time concurrent since June 2025. In the last 14 months, 11 saw the game lose players, and one of the three gaining months was up by a negligible 758 players.

Since Steam represents fraction of the entire player tally at any given moment, it's easy to see these numbers and immediately assume the franchise as a whole is on life support. That wouldn't be a fair evaluation given the vast majority of players are on console.

A clear illustration of this is Black Ops 7 debuted on Nov. 14, 2025, and it led all games in physical and tracked digital sales during December. The game's publisher, Activision, is owned by Microsoft, and no sales data has been released as of late January to give more up-to-date context. Note: Black Ops 6 and 7 sales data is not publicly available.

Another element that could influence the perception is Xbox's subscription service, Game Pass, had BO7 available on Day 1, which absolutely cuts into sales figures on that platform. Again, we don't know actual sales figures, so take that for what you will.

Even if the game hits 20 million copies sold in total, it remains a commercial success but pales in comparison to Call of Duty's all-time mark of approximately 43 million (Black Ops III) in 2015 and even the Modern Warfare (2019) release that peddled an estimated 41 mill. That speaks to the evolution of the industry and is not necessarily an indictment of the franchise.

The Effects of Saturation and Fatigue Are Very Real

Saturation is tougher to overcome, because people have too many choices. Yes, calling for more options in Warzone in a moment isn't lost on me, but this is quite different. Call of Duty has more competitors vying for their attention, time, and money than ever before, and none of that includes all the innumerable options outside of gaming.

What Can Save Call of Duty?

Look no further than the immediate success of rival Battlefield 6 setting franchise sales records in its first week if you want a blueprint for how Call of Duty can get back to form.

BF6 ditched the futuristic Battlefield 2042 (BF2042) model, didn't get too cute with its skins and modes, and paid homage to what gave it an audience large enough to make it this far. Fans with BF2042 fatigue following what was a lackluster Battlefield V experience still were willing to forgive developers after playing a beta that didn't disrespect them in the same way. Not only did Battlefield 6 see past gamers return, but it also attracted new fans—many of whom were former COD loyalists. For clarity, I don't even own BF6, and Electronic Arts had nothing to do with crafting this article. I played the beta and acknowledge the strides it made but remain partial to Call of Duty's gameplay speed.

In the short term, Warzone's upcoming map, Avalon, is the best hope for a resurgence, pun intended. Over the long haul, even the most optimistic among us wouldn't say with a straight face that COD's best days are ahead. That doesn't mean there won't be highs and fun gaming experiences yet to come.

To Activision's credit, Black Ops 6 and BO7 have not been the worst games the franchise has produced, and the latter has made commendable efforts to better resemble the most successful era of COD. Thus far, I've had a considerable amount of fun playing the latter, and I invested more time than I care to admit into the former.

Rooting Out the Cheaters

Warzone's success remains largely dependent on whether the game's anti-cheat software, RICOCHET, has adequately reduced hackers and cheaters who use emulator controllers. Supposedly—forgive me if you can hear my eyes rolling through your screen—RICOCHET has conquered the latter and made strides against the former in the latest Season 2 update.

Since the recent launch, my personal experience has been there's a notable decrease in obvious hackers (walling, aimbot, etc.), but the number of Level 55 nonprestige players with suspect kills has been tough to ignore. In fairness, the math mostly maths given the number of people who opt out of prestiging. The latest update has been filled with more sweats than in recent memory, but that's a tale for another day.

Patchwork Repairs and Flawed Matchmaking Drive Away Users          

Another path for retaining players will be to improve the response time to fixing bugs with minipatch updates. Being frustratingly slow to address glitches—often created after a separate fix—has been a common theme across AAA studios in recent years, so it's not like COD devs are on an island in this regard.

Skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) and its most recent iteration of how the game files players into lobbies in some ways put the game in a lose-lose situation. Activision doesn't want a noob getting slammed by a demon out of the gate and quitting altogether, but there have to be matchmaking considerations given to non-skill-based aspects, such as latency (ping), geolocation, available player pools, and more. No matter what COD comes up with, someone will be unhappy, but it feels like the latest version has more one-sided lobbies than the older protocol.

Ending Player Alienation

More of a long-term remedy that may never truly be solved for, there must be a better balance between innovating in a way that appeals to Call of Duty's core audience while also keeping an eye on expanding the base. Alienating OG gamers in an effort to chase a different audience via crossover events, skins that feel wholly disassociated from the historical COD experience, and low-effort content releases must stop. There's also an argument to be made that the franchise should take a year off to rebuild, and shifting away from consecutive sub-series releases should help.

Perhaps worst of all is ignoring what users find popular. An example is removing wildly enjoyable modes, such as Plunder and Casual Solos, for "reasons" feels insulting.

One other aspect akin to the last point, giving gamers more flavors of ice cream would go a long way. Why can't we have the ability to play any of the previously released Warzone maps or modes? Server maintenance and the like are factors, and the game is free to play, but the money behind Microsoft and microtransactions make that a moot point.

I can speak only for myself, but I'd much rather pay via real money or earned COD Points to unlock the ability to play older maps on both BR and multiplayer than be left with Verdansk for months on end and a rotation of the same two resurgence maps. I digress, but this would go hard for bringing former players back into the fold.

Activision needs to take a page out of EA's playbook with regards to how the Battlefield maker treats its fans. If that needle can be artfully threaded, there's hope. For now, it appears the core plan is to rely on developer Infinity Ward's next-gen engine to carry the franchise from 2026 into the PlayStation 6 era.

Is Call of Duty able to recover a substantial portion of its base? If so, how? Sound off in the comments and the poll to let us hear your take.