Call Of Duty 2027 will launch new franchise with martial arts theme says leaker
There are very few surprises when it comes to Call Of Duty these days, both in its gameplay and the fact each annual instalment is usually leaked years in advance.
As announced last month, this year's entry is another Black Ops sequel, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, from developer Treyarch. While nothing official has been said about the 2026 game, it's rumoured to be a sequel to 2023's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, centred around Korea and made by Infinity Ward.
While some hoped the following entry in 2027 would be a sequel to Sledgehammer's futuristic Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, it seems the studio might be cooking up an entirely new sub-franchise.
According to reliable Call Of Duty leaker TheGhostOfHope, the 2027 game will be 'set in a completely new sub-franchise' in the 'modern era'. While there aren't many details on what will separate it from Modern Warfare, movement is planned to be a 'big focus', which will include a lot of martial arts.
'There may be a focus on martial arts within the gameplay with 'karate kicks' and 'karate chops' as examples,' they wrote on X.
It's unclear if this will still be a relatively minor element or some kind of elaborate Sifu-esque overhaul, but it's certainly a bizarre addition if true. Especially given how difficult it is to create meaningful melee combat in a first person perspective.
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EXCLUSIVE: COD2027 by Sledgehammer Games will NOT be Advanced Warfare 2 and will instead be set in a completely new subfranchise.Set during the Modern era.No Jetpacks but movement is planned to be a big focus.Zombies is currently not planned for the game.Get High is… pic.twitter.com/IRt67uAJe2 — Hope (@TheGhostOfHope) July 17, 2025
The leaker claims the title, developed by Sledgehammer Games, will not feature jetpacks or Zombies mode. However, the parkour-themed mode Get High, which debuted in the studio's last Call Of Duty game Modern Warfare 3, is 'planned' to return. More Trending
Not featuring Zombies is a major shift for the series, which has relied on it for its co-op mode for many years now. Although Zombies has begun to seem increasingly in need of an overhaul in recent sequels, so this may be an implicit acceptance of that.
While we likely won't get confirmation of these details until around this time in 2027, Call Of Duty hasn't tried to launch a new sub-franchise since 2021's Call Of Duty: Vanguard, a Second World War shooter which fell below Activision's sales expectations.
Whether the new game lands with the general Call Of Duty masses or not, the series is in dire need of some kind of refresh – especially as we've been stuck in a Black Ops and Modern Warfare rotation for the past four years.
The next instalment, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7, was officially announced during last month's Xbox games showcase, with a full reveal set to take place at Gamescom in August.
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Games Inbox: Will Battlefield 6 outsell Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7?
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Battlefield Studios head Vince Zampella (who famously helped create Call Of Duty) was also quizzed by Eurogamer about the possibility of crossover skins. 'We want to be true to Battlefield, we want this fantasy to feel like you'd expect of Battlefield, so that's what we've been focused on,' he answered. While it can feel like Call Of Duty fans are always complaining about something with each new game, the series' use of crossover skins has been a point of contention for many years now. Things started off with celebrity cameos like Lewis Hamilton and various footballers, but as the years went on the skins became more and more fantastical. It was one thing when Call Of Duty was adding action heroes like Rambo and John McClane, who at least somewhat fit with the series' aesthetic, but now you have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and cartoon characters like Beavis and Butthead running around shooting one another in Call Of Duty's otherwise realistic looking maps. There's no shortage of Call Of Duty fans hating on these sort of skins online, with the Beavis and Butthead ones prompting a Reddit thread labelled 'COD is cooked' with more than 8,000 upvotes. 'I was fine with the future tech, the anime, I reluctantly accepted the animal and mascot characters but… f***ing giant glowy cartoon character? Really?' reads the top comment. 'I remember coming around a corner and seeing Nicki Minaj knifing some dude and just turned the game off. It was the last time I played COD,' reads another. COD is Cooked [COD] byu/Purehate28 inCallOfDuty A separate thread from nine months ago innocently asked fans what their favourite Call Of Duty collab has been and while there are plenty legitimate answers, a lot of comments are people answering with none of them. The top comment is just a blunt 'No', with the second most upvoted being, 'None, I hate annoying skins, let alone crossovers.' As a result, a rumour from April, courtesy of frequent Call Of Duty insider GhostOfHope, suggests that despite the crossovers 'printing money,' Activision plans to rein them in because of fan complaints. By comparison, Battlefield fans have been elated at just how ordinary the skins for Battlefield 6 look so far. When the first line-up of skins leaked earlier this week, fans on Reddit praised them for looking like… generic soldiers. One comment simply reads, 'I love them, I love them, I love them,' while another says, 'Finally no weird operators, just plain anonymous soldiers.' That said, there remain concerns that EA will opt to sell weird crossover skins later down the line. After all, the reason Call Of Duty and Fortnite keep doing them is that despite the complaints plenty of people are willing to pay good money for them. More Trending 'The moment I see Nicki Minaj running through the map holding an M16, I'm out,' says one fan, with someone predicting it'll happen in just six months. Another fan writes, 'Modern military skins is totally okay, but that's a big no if we see some other characters for instance from Squid Game, Beavis & Butthead, Diablo 3, etc., etc. with anime guns and/or some other funky/pop/arcade things.' It's worth noting that Battlefield has dabbled in crossovers before, with Battlefield 2042 receiving skins based on Dead Space and Mass Effect. However, those are EA owned franchises and at least vaguely fit Battlefield's near future aesthetic. Even so, while the Battlefield 6 team might be disinterested in copying Call Of Duty's example when it comes to collabs, the higher-ups may have different ideas, especially if they want to market the game to a wider audience beyond the established fanbase. Email gamecentral@ leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader's Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. MORE: Battlefield 6 pre-orders are live – here's everything you need to know MORE: Call Of Duty fans reject Blacks Ops 7 for 2025's other big shooter MORE: Call Of Duty 2027 will launch new franchise with martial arts theme says leaker
