Veteran Call of Duty developer Treyarch is finishing up its work on Black Ops 7 and shifting to its next project, but what will that be? That remains to be seen, but Treyarch design director Kevin Drew said in a new Dev Talk video that it might not be what you expect.
Drew said Treyarch has “learned a lot” working on 2024’s Black Ops 6 and 2025’s Black Ops 7 and “tried a lot of things in our current era.”
“But we’re ready to make something new and something that nobody’s ever experienced before,” he said.
That sounds hyperbolic and extreme, and Call of Duty studios are definitely known for grandiose claims.
Treyarch created the Black Ops series, which debuted in 2010, and it remains one of the most popular brands within the franchise. In an unusual move, back-to-back Black Ops games came out in 2024 and 2025, and Treyarch itself admitted it did worry about franchise fatigue.
EA’s Battlefield 6 outsold Black Ops 7 in 2025, with Black Ops 7 falling down to the No. 5 spot for the year, at least in the US. In another big shakeup for Call of Duty, and seemingly in a bid to sell more units, Microsoft announced that Call of Duty games will no longer be included with Xbox Game Pass at launch, beginning with this year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4.
Infinity Ward is leading development on Modern Warfare 4, though, as usual, Activision’s network of Call of Duty studios, including Treyarch, are expected to contribute to the game’s overall development.
An interesting rumor making the rounds related to Call of Duty claims that Microsoft–which owns Call of Duty and Activision–is considering having a Call of Duty studio work on a Halo game. Another rumor said Microsoft could “put Halo under Activision” as part of a larger restructuring to help Halo regain its prominence in the FPS market.