MSFT - Activision's 2023 'Call of Duty' to pick up on last year's story

• Activision Blizzard's ( NASDAQ: ATVI ) plan for this year's Call of Duty release, taking place against the backdrop of a proposed $69B acquisition of the company by Microsoft ( NASDAQ: MSFT ): Apparently some more thoroughly modern warfare.
• The holiday-season release of the perennial best-selling franchise will be a continuation of the story in 2022's Modern Warfare II - something aiming for both the feel of a stand-alone, full-price release and an extension of last year's best-seller, Bloomberg reported .
• At one point in the timeline of Microsoft's acquisition of the company, the 2023 release was called off, before a reversal that suggested a new entry would arrive late in the year.
• In early 2022 Activision decided to delay the next game developed by its Treyarch studio, which was set for 2023. But then it told Sledgehammer (another of the three rotating studios producing the annual releases) to make a "premium expansion" for 2022's Modern Warfare II - and that appears to be changing into a full game release, according to the report.

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