The Call of Duty series looks to be returning to Steam, at least if you choose to take this odd leak somehow.When Activision recently announced Modern Warfare 2 As a sequel to the 2019 game, the publisher has not confirmed whether it will be available on any specific platform.
But the chances of the game skipping PC are slim. However, this leak may cast doubt on which storefront the new Call of Duty will be available in.
Modern Warfare 2 will be released on October 28, but pre-orders are not yet available on any platform. In other words, the official store page doesn’t exist yet. So far, business as usual, save for the fact that the game appears to be coming to Steam soon.
On Reddit, user Kalinine spotted a suspicious banner on Steam promoting the Call of Duty franchise. More specifically, the art can be briefly seen when browsing the Call of Duty DLC page. However, as you’re about to see, the banner doesn’t use the original Modern Warfare 2 art, but a brand new look for 2021 (thanks Garysplay).
In the background, we can see Simon “Ghost” Riley showing off his updated Modern Warfare 2019 character designs…as well as the colors and highlights used to promote this year’s game. Sure, Ghost is already in several Call of Duty games you can buy on Steam right now — but not the modern Ghost.
Naturally, this sparked speculation that Activision might bring Call of Duty back to Steam — starting with Modern Warfare 2. In 2018, Activision decided to no longer release Call of Duty games on the Valve storefront, opting instead to make them available exclusively to the BlizzardBattle.net app – which it owns entirely.
While this is far from official confirmation, the move is not entirely unthinkable. Activision’s imminent acquisition by Microsoft for $69 billion could change the company’s priorities a bit. Other major publishers, such as EA, have recently embraced Steam again after abandoning it a decade ago.
Valve is happy to allow third-party launchers on Steam, so we can look forward to a future where Battle.net is still the launcher for Call of Duty, except that the game will be available for purchase on Steam.
Regardless of the implications, this particular leak is still interesting. Since Activision decided to give its rebooted Modern Warfare series the same name as the original, everyone was lamenting how confusing that would make things, especially considering that remakes of the first two games in the series already existed .
It seems likely that the person in charge of sorting the materials for the store screwed up and accidentally used the art of the new Modern Warfare 2 to promote the old Modern Warfare 2 – a self that perfectly illustrates this point.
