Highlights
- Sledgehammer Games is leading development on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, with the title set to debut the Carry-Forward system.
- The Carry-Forward system allows players to transfer items from the current game, MW2, into Modern Warfare 3, and it may become the norm for future Call of Duty games.
- The Carry-Forward system could be used for Black Ops, too, so fans may be looking at back-to-back Black Ops games in 2024 and 2025. Perhaps Sledgehammer will continue to develop the second game in each Black Ops and Modern Warfare "era."
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is certainly shaping up to be a unique entry in the beloved subseries. Instead of being helmed by Infinity Ward, the developer that birthed and revived Modern Warfare, Sledgehammer Games will be leading development on this year’s Call of Duty game. If rumors are to be believed, Sledgehammer will also be leaning more into nostalgia than the other entries in the rebooted Modern Warfare series, with the Ninja perk returning, the classic mini-map making a comeback, and a huge focus on map remasters. However, it will also be full of content from 2022’s CoD game.
Anyone interested in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will have likely heard about the Carry-Forward system by now. This mechanic will let players transfer nearly every item from the current game into Modern Warfare 3, with the exception of War Tracks and any skins tied to equipment and vehicles that will not be featured in the next game. Blueprints, Operators, Weapons, and other unlocked cosmetics will all be making the jump over to Modern Warfare 3, rewarding players who invested in the previous game. With this system being so interesting, it is worth considering that it might just become the norm for the series going forward.
Carry-Forward Could Be a Middle Ground For Activision and Call of Duty Fans
For years, gamers have begged for Activision to bring an end to Call of Duty’s yearly release cycle, with fans feeling burnout due to the approach and believing that it has negatively impacted the quality of recent games. While the impressive sales success of the series means that the formula is unlikely to change anytime soon, this could be Activision’s way of compromising. With a Carry-forward system, two games are chained together so that players do not have to abandon all the content they grinded for after just one year.
While players will still be paying for two full price games, the upside of a Carry-Forward approach is obvious, especially for gamers who pick up Call of Duty every single year. If players spend an entire year grinding for Dark Matter - which is realistic given how little gaming time some gamers have - then this way they would have a full year to make use of that camo as opposed to almost no time at all. It can be assumed that Carry-Forward will prove popular with fans, so long as Modern Warfare 3 has plenty of new content in addition to what is returning. As such, it might become the norm for the series.
However, for a Carry-Forward system to work, the two games have to have similar settings. For example, a Black Ops game is unlikely to Carry-Forward into a new Modern Warfare and vice versa, something that could hint at a new long-term plan for the franchise. While Modern Warfare 3 releasing immediately after Modern Warfare 2 is strange and unprecedented, as fans are used to a gap between entries in the same subseries, that might just be how things work from now on.
Call of Duty 2024 is all-but-confirmed to be a new Black Ops game created by Treyarch, and if Activision wants to keep Carry-Forward going, then Call of Duty 2025 might just be a Black Ops title too. Perhaps it will be developed by Sledgehammer Games as well, just like Modern Warfare 3 is. With Sledgehammer’s original games like WW2 and Vanguard failing to catch on, Activision may want the studio to work with the beloved Black Ops and Modern Warfare brands from now on.
Though this is purely speculation, the new formula may be as follows. Infinity Ward could create a Modern Warfare game, with all the content carried over to a second Modern Warfare game made by Sledgehammer a year later. Then, Treyarch could craft a Black Ops game that is immediately followed up by a Sledgehammer Black Ops title. Once again, Carry-Forward could be used here. While it remains to be seen if Sledgehammer could recapture the feel of Infinity Ward and possibly Treyarch’s signature franchises, this way players would be getting a two-game “era” for Modern Warfare and Black Ops as opposed to constantly switching between the two. While it is not quite the same as one game being supported for multiple years, content being shared between two games may make it feel like the next best thing.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is scheduled to release on November 10 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.