Asha Sharma, CEO of Xbox, said in a tweet that Call of Duty has crossed $40 billion in revenue in its franchise history.
Since the first game came out with a D-Day focus in 2003, there have been a total of 23 mainline Call of Duty games for the consoles and PC. And if you do the math, that means that the franchise earns $1.7 billion on average for each installment.
“One of the most celebrated Call of Duty games in its 24-year history, and now $40B in lifetime franchise revenue. An incredible milestone. Congrats to the Activision team. And to the players, thank you for being with us,” Sharma said.
A couple of years ago, Activision also said that the number of people who have played Call of Duty has surpassed 400 million players. On average, that’s about 17.3 million players per edition of Call of Duty.
And while last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was forgettable, Modern Warfare 4 has an average Metacritic rating of 86 out of 100, the highest in many years. I rated it 9/10.
I have been playing the game since before the launch and have completed the campaign. I’ve played a number of rounds of DMZ and multiplayer and am ranked at level 29 at the moment. As many reviewers have noted, I believe this is the best Call of Duty in many years. The campaign itself is focused on a hypothetical North Korean invasion of South Korea, as well as the clandestine warfare between special operatives and terrorists. The story is riveting, and the war itself has terrifying elements to it.
With DMZ, Infinity Ward also brought back Call of Duty’s version of an extraction mode, which has become a popular first-person shooter mode. And this DMZ has a combination of smart enemies, an interesting open world, and lots of missions with varying degrees of risk — as well as player-vs-player combat. What’s not to like?
This is the kind of success story that Sharma wants to double down on and bring back to its core audience. And there’s going to be a Call of Duty movie coming in 2028 that revolves around the story of Captain John Price from the Modern Warfare series.