Activision and Tencent are collaborating to create a free-to-play Call of Duty mobile game to China.
The new game will deliver a first-person action experience, bringing together a collection of Call of Duty characters, maps, modes, and weapons from the franchise’s 18-year history.
Tencent’s mobile studio is heading development, drawing on its history of success with mobile first-person action titles and Tencent’s reach in serving hundreds of millions of consumers in China. The title is scheduled to launch in the coming months. It will be interesting to see how well the Call of Duty brand fares in China, where Tencent and SmileGate rule with the Crossfire first-person shooter. Call of Duty Online launched in 2015 in China, but it hasn’t dislodged the market leader.
“We’re working closely with one of Tencent’s top mobile studios, Timi, to develop a fun and original Call of Duty experience that delivers superb gameplay and mechanics to mobile players,” said Rob Kostich, executive vice president and general manager for Call of Duty, in a statement. “Call of Duty has been the leading first person action experience around the globe for years* and seeing that come to life on the mobile platform has been really exciting. We can’t wait for fans to play.”
The companies didn’t describe much about the kind of game they are creating.
“Tencent is thrilled to bring the No. 1 top-selling, console video game franchise globally eight of the last nine years* to the millions of mobile game players in China,” said Steven Ma, senior vice president of Tencent Holdings, in a statement. “We are bringing together a vast array of characters, content and modes from across this great franchise into a new Call of Duty mobile game tailored to meet the interests and play styles of mobile players in China. We look forward to revealing the title soon and releasing the game in China in a few months.”
Activision launched Call of Duty: Heroes on mobile in 2014. Measurement firm Sensor Tower reported that the game generated $20 million in revenue and 44 million downloads, and it is still active.
Activision also launched Call of Duty: Zombies, now inactive. It generated 1.3 million downloads and $7 million in revenue. And it also launched Call of Duty: Strike Team, which generated 800,000 downloads and $6 million in revenue. That game is also inactive. Finally, Sensor Tower noted that the sci-fi strategy game Call of Duty: Siege soft-launched in October 2016, but it was canceled before release.
