It's an interesting time for the Call of Duty franchise - its latest instalment, Modern Warfare 2, is smashing records and has already made publisher Activision more than $1 billion since release, even before its microtransaction store goes live.

However, there are strong rumours that 2023 will be the first time the franchise doesn't get a full game in memory, so we've gathered all the relevant details to clarify what's likely to happen for you.

Will there be a COD in 2023?

The short answer to this is that it depends on how you define a full COD game, but probably not.

Extensive industry reporting is indicating that Activision has given its Call of Duty developers license to let their games finally breathe, giving Modern Warfare 2 a couple of years as the main COD, instead of the typical single year in the spotlight.

According to Bloomberg's hyper-reliable Jason Schreier, 2023 will see a new package of content delivered for Modern Warfare 2 with a price tag attached, however, possibly expanding on its campaign and bringing new missions and experiences with it.

He says this is being developed by Sledgehammer Games, which previously worked on Vanguard, and that it's in the frame as the singular COD release for 2023.

This might seem to be contradicted by Activision's statements in November 2022, which indicated that it is looking forward to "the next full premium release in the blockbuster annual series".

However, semantics can be carefully misused, and it's entirely possible that Activision is simply leaning into the fact that it intends to release a full expansion for Modern Warfare 2. Whether this will actually be called Modern Warfare 3, or whether it'll be marketed as more of a stop-gap remains to be seen.

Given that the current version of Modern Warfare 2 doesn't include the popular Zombies game mode, that's one more avenue for new content in an expansion.

Content plans

This may all just be a canny way to gloss over the way that Activision intends to give Modern Warfare 2 multiple years of support, but it doesn't mean that we'll have to wait until 2023 for more content in the game as it stands.

The first season of post-launch content for Modern Warfare 2 starts on 16 November and will bring new weaponry and operators, along with a new map, if previous games are reliable guides.

These seasons will continue to drop every couple of months from then onward, and will also tie in heavily with the newly-launched Warzone 2.0 and DMZ modes that are releasing at the same time.