- Release
- Friday 23 October 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. Not on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One (callofduty.com's announcement, 28 May 2026).
- Early access
- The full Campaign from Friday 16 October for digital pre-orders of the Standard Digital or Vault edition (callofduty.com). Physical buyers are not included.
- Who made it
- Development led by Infinity Ward, published by Activision; Beenox on PC, Digital Legends on Switch 2, plus nine other Activision studios in the credits.
- Modes
- Campaign, Multiplayer and DMZ. No Zombies mode appears anywhere in the official material.
- Played it
- Nobody has, beyond press demos and two beta weekends in August 2026. No review of the finished game exists.
Confirmed by Activision's own posts
📅 23 October 2026, one date everywhere
The announcement of 28 May 2026 gives a single global launch day and four platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (Battle.net, Steam and Xbox on PC) and Nintendo Switch 2. It states twice that the game will not be on PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
🎟️ The whole campaign, a week early
The 12 June post says digital pre-orders and pre-purchases get Campaign Early Access from Friday 16 October. The Switch 2 post of 26 August is the one that spells out the scope: the full Campaign, finishable before launch day. Activision footnotes the date as subject to change.
🏗️ Infinity Ward leads it
Every callofduty.com post ends with the same credit block: development led by Infinity Ward; PC led by Infinity Ward with Beenox; Switch 2 built natively by Infinity Ward with Digital Legends. Additional development from Activision Central Design, Activision Central Technology, Activision QA, Activision Shanghai, Beenox, Demonware, High Moon Studios, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games and Treyarch. Ten assisting studios in all.
🧭 Three modes, named
Campaign, Multiplayer and DMZ — an extraction mode set in an exclusion zone called Hajin. Warzone stays a separate free title but starts taking Modern Warfare 4 content and seasonal progression from Season 1.
🖥️ Current generation only
Activision describes the game as built natively for current consoles and PC, and Infinity Ward co-studio head Jack O'Hara has said on the record why: supporting PS4-era hardware had reached the point where the team was optimising more than it was building.
🚫 Not on Game Pass at launch
Activision's own editions post and the Xbox store page both say it plainly. The game reportedly reaches Game Pass at least a year after launch; no date has been announced by anyone.
🧪 Two beta weekends happened
An early-access weekend from 21 to 25 August and an open weekend from 28 August to 1 September, the second on every platform including Switch 2. It carried a Campaign mission, a first for a Call of Duty beta.
What the previews and the beta actually showed
- Multiplayer. One preview played roughly 90 minutes of it at Infinity Ward, another two maps at a press event; the public betas ran six of the twelve launch maps.
- One Campaign mission. "Entrenched", a large-scale assault to stop a power station falling to the enemy, playable in both beta weekends.
- The movement rebuild. Activision published eight named mechanics; both hands-on previews confirmed in play that it is faster than Modern Warfare II but deliberately short of Treyarch's Omnimovement.
- Gunplay with bloom removed. Activision's line is that hipfire now goes where the weapon points; one hands-on preview called the audio, animation and feedback the strongest part of the demo.
- Apex Attachments, unlocked in the demo build. A hands-on preview listed several by function, including a shotgun with explosive rounds and a sniper rifle with side-mounted throwing knives.
- Kill Block, the reconfiguring map, running Gunfight at 3v3 and a new 10v10.
- Ground War: Combat Outpost at 24v24 on two maps, and Warzone Resurgence on a new map called Zodiac.
- The Campaign story, in trailers only. The Tokyo Game Show trailer of 17 September is the fullest look so far, and it is a trailer, not gameplay in anyone's hands.
Not announced, and worth not assuming
❓ How long the Campaign is
No mission count and no hour figure from Activision. The only thing on the record is Infinity Ward associate design director Alex Norris telling the press at the studio that it is probably the largest Modern Warfare campaign; the interviewer's own guess of ten hours or more is an inference, and is labelled as such.
❓ Install size on PS5 and Xbox
Activision has published no launch install size for PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S. The only official-channel numbers anywhere are the PC requirement — an SSD with 115 GB free — and Nintendo's eShop listing for Switch 2, reported by Nintendo Life at about 84.9 GB.
❓ Resolution and frame-rate targets
Nothing has been published for PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S. Activision talks about fidelity and responsiveness without numbers; the Xbox store page carries only Microsoft's standard capability tags (4K Ultra HD, HDR10, 60 fps+, 120 fps), which are not a target for this game. On Switch 2, Digital Legends, the studio building that version, says multiplayer reaches 60 fps docked and about 44 fps handheld, and the Campaign runs at 30 fps. No resolution has been published for it. On PC, Activision aims its recommended spec at 90 fps in multiplayer on High settings.
❓ A Zombies mode
The announcement describes Campaign, Multiplayer and DMZ and stops there. Third-party listings give single-player and multiplayer only. No source says there is a Zombies mode, and none says there is not.
❓ Campaign co-op
Not mentioned in any official post or preview. The Campaign is described only in single-player terms.
❓ When Game Pass gets it
Activision confirms only that it is not there at launch. It is reportedly a year or more afterwards; the outlets naming 2027 could not be read directly for this page.
❓ DMZ lobby size
Activision's DMZ deep dive of 6 June describes solo and squad play without ever stating a player count. Reportedly, twenty squads of up to three. Treat the number as unconfirmed.
❓ The ESRB rating
The Xbox store page still shows Rating Pending as of this check.
Where the sources disagree
| On | One side | The other |
|---|---|---|
| Game Pass | Activision and Xbox: not available with Game Pass at launch, stated flatly. | Reportedly, it arrives on Game Pass at least a year after launch. Nobody has named a date. |
Cross-checked
Cross-checked and re-checked on 1 October 2026, and on 3 October 2026 against the Xbox store pages again and GoNintendo's interview with Digital Legends, against Activision's own posts on callofduty.com and support.activision.com, the Xbox store page, Xbox Wire, the PlayStation Blog, and the coverage of Wikipedia, GameRant, PC Gamer, GamesRadar+, Game Informer, GamingTrend, Nintendo Life, Vandal, Eurogamer.es, GodisaGeek and Insider Gaming. On 3 October 2026 the Xbox store pages for console and Windows were read again: they no longer show the Treyarch, Raven developer credit or the Standard, Deluxe and Ultimate slots an earlier check found, only Activision Publishing as publisher, the game at $69.99 and the Vault Edition at $99.99. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and what the sources do not describe is not on this page.