Despite once being at the peak of gaming popularity, Activision’s Call of Duty franchise has lost a considerable amount of players recently. In the latest investor report, Activision revealed that this number was close to 50 million players who had dropped off playing both Vanguard and Warzone.

According to the report, a total of around 50 million players had stopped playing Call of Duty in the last year, bringing its monthly active users from 150 million users to 100 million users. While that number is still enormous and would be considered a massive success for any franchise, the fact that a third of the Call of Duty player base chose to stop playing should be rather concerning for Activision.

READ MORE Naughty Dog QA Tester Adds “Unannounced Remake Project” To LinkedIn

Activision cites the disappointing sales for Call of Duty: Vanguard as the reason for the “lower engagement” in players, though the same can’t be said about Warzone which is free-to-play and where a majority of players are.

That said, Warzone content hit a bit of a rough patch in the last year, with poor seasonal additions, a plethora of balancing problems, the slow roll-out of new activities as well as a new map that launched with numerous game-breaking bugs. It doesn’t help that Activision, amidst dealing with controversies and harassment allegations, are still currently facing the problems brought on by the mass lay-off of QA testers at developer Raven Software.

However, Activision believes that this year’s Call of Duty entry, Modern Warfare 2, will be enough to rejuvenate interest in the franchise and restore the player base again. Series veteran studio Infinity Ward is helming the project, which is set to have its big reveal in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Call of Duty Warzone will receive a crossover involving King Kong and Godzilla… for some reason.

NOW READ Call of Duty Producer Joins Naughty Dog Amidst New Job Openings

Source: PC Gamer