Earlier this week, Microsoft shocked the gaming world with its announcement of the biggest acquisition within the historical past of gaming. The Xbox creators introduced their plans to accumulate Activision Blizzard, the creators of ridiculously in style franchises like World of Warcraft and Name of Responsibility, for a staggering $68.7 billion.
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As you’d think about, this announcement caught lots of people unexpectedly. Activision Blizzard has had a tumultuous 12 months of poisonous office allegations, however no one actually noticed an acquisition like this coming.
One of many largest questions which have been raised after the announcement is what’s going to occur to the Name of Responsibility franchise? Name of Responsibility has been a staple FPS recreation throughout each Xbox and PlayStation for many years at this level.
However Microsoft hasn’t been shy about changing franchises to Xbox exclusives after acquisitions. Is that what’s going to occur with Name of Responsibility? Right here’s what we all know up to now.
Will Name of Responsibility turn out to be an Xbox unique?
One necessary factor to notice is that that is simply the announcement of the acquisition. Microsoft has projected that the acquisition is probably going going to shut someday in 2023. Till then, Activision Blizzard will function like regular, and we shouldn’t anticipate any main shifts in Name of Responsibility’s plans.
As at all times, the franchise is anticipated to launch a brand new recreation within the fall of 2022. Present hypothesis says that this 12 months’s recreation shall be a follow-up to 2019’s Trendy Warfare that can characteristic a serious Warzone replace.
However what occurs when the deal lastly goes via? Sadly, all we will do proper now could be speculate. However, this isn’t the primary time that Microsoft has acquired a serious gaming firm, so we will have a look at a few of the issues the corporate has accomplished previously.
First, let’s have a look at the Bethesda acquisition that Microsoft accomplished on the finish of 2020. It initially seemed like Microsoft was going to keep away from the exclusivity route with Bethesda’s video games, however a later interview with Xbox head Phil Spencer revealed that a minimum of a few of the firm’s franchises, like The Elder Scrolls and the brand new IP Starfield, would most probably be launched as exclusives.
However, Microsoft has additionally gone the exact opposite route with different acquisitions. The corporate acquired Mojang, creators of Minecraft, method again in 2014. In the case of that recreation, the corporate has saved it out there on as many platforms as doable, seemingly serving to it to turn out to be probably the most in style video games on the earth.
We are able to’t think about the COD franchise turning into an Xbox unique
From what we’ve seen previously, it seems like Microsoft seems at exclusivity on a case-by-case foundation. The corporate has opted to go for exclusives in some franchises but it surely has saved others on different platforms for years.
In my view, the Name of Responsibility franchise is way nearer to Minecraft than any of Microsoft’s different franchises by way of reputation and notoriety. For that cause, I might be extremely shocked if we noticed the corporate convert Name of Responsibility to an Xbox unique franchise.
Microsoft would merely lose out on too many potential gamers for the franchise that has been out there throughout consoles for generations. However, the corporate has shocked us previously and it may undoubtedly shock us once more. We’ll simply have to attend and see what occurs when the acquisition is definitely finalized subsequent 12 months.