“Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” and “Call Of Duty: Warzone” recently delayed the launch of Season 4, which was supposed to drop last week. This decision came after much of the video game industry pushed back launches and announcements in the wake of widespread social unrest and numerous protests condemning systemic racism and police brutality. The season was originally slated to begin on June 3rd, but the announcement of the delay did not contain a new date for the release of Season 4, presumably due to the fluid nature of the situation.
Now, a data miner says that they’ve found the new release date in the game code for CoD: Warzone. All of these leaks and the rumours surrounding them clearly point to the release date for the new season being the 10th of June.
The tweet from data miner “Geeky Pastimes” reads: “According to datamined #CallofDuty files the Season 4 Update is coming on Wednesday morning UTC. The Unix Epoch codes in the files for Season 3 Challenges ending was changed from June 2 to June 10 UTC #CODLeak”.
However, it goes without saying that all of this information should be taken with a grain of salt. While this date may very well be in the game code, it’s possible that the developers specified that date because they had to put a new start date into the code (that may just be how the game’s code is written). Hence, there isn’t currently any indication of Activision and Infinity Ward’s actual plans. Of all the delayed events and announcements, Fortnite was the only game that specified a date for the launch of its delayed (yes, again) Chapter 2 Season 3, which was June 15th.
That being said, the rumours could also very well be accurate, and it might even be the internal plan at the moment. Yet, that doesn’t mean the date is not subject to change.
It remains a tricky decision for video game companies to decide when it’s “safe” to proceed as normal. It’s even trickier for something like Call of Duty, a series that has increasingly embraced militarism even if it occasionally pays lip service to complicated moral grey areas. This uncomfortable proximity to reality isn’t something that, say, Fortnite has to deal with. Warzone is also one of the biggest games on the planet right now, and that means that Activision and Infinity Ward have to tread lightly and, of course, avoid garnering any criticism that could negatively affect the game’s publicity.
If this leaked data is indeed true, I would expect an announcement tomorrow at the latest, with details and roadmaps coming on Tuesday. However, with the precarious nature of the current situation in the USA and around the world, I wouldn’t be surprised if that date was proved to be wrong. At the moment, my best guess would be that the update is slated for release after a few weeks. While one has to consider what’s going on in the USA right now, I believe I speak for all CoD players when I say I do personally hope that the update is released as soon as possible!
