Call of Duty Finally Dumps PS4 After Six Years

Six years after the PS5 launched, Call of Duty is finally done with PS4. Activision confirmed on X on May 4 that "the next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4," making Black Ops 7 the last entry to ship on eighth-generation hardware.

For comparison, the PS3 got cut off just two years into the PS4's life cycle, with 2015's Black Ops 3 being the final last-gen release. The fact that we're talking about a six-year gap this time around is absurd, and I think it says more about how cautious Activision has been about leaving any potential revenue on the table than it does about PS4's longevity. Every year those last-gen versions shipped with worse performance, lower resolution, and longer load times, and every year the community asked why they were still dragging the franchise down.

The denial came after leaker Alaix claimed over the weekend that the next CoD was being playtested on PS4 hardware. Given that Black Ops 7 shipped on PS4 and Xbox One alongside current-gen platforms and PC, nobody blinked at the claim. The official Call of Duty account stepped in unusually fast: "Not sure where this one started, but it's not true."

What Comes Next

Activision hasn't formally announced what this year's Call of Duty actually is. No title, no platforms confirmed beyond PS4 being ruled out, no release date. Leakers have claimed the campaign is set on the Korean peninsula, with both North and South Korea playing significant roles, and that the title may incorporate the Korean character 사 (four) in its branding. TheGhostOfHope had predicted the last-gen drop back in early 2025, alongside claims of an overhauled engine and development on next-gen Xbox devkits. Infinity Ward's response at the time was a dismissive "don't believe everything you read on the internet," which aged about as well as you'd expect.

Dropping PS4 and Xbox One should mean more than just better frame rates and sharper textures. The real opportunity here is architectural. A Call of Duty built exclusively for current-gen hardware and PC could rethink map streaming, AI complexity, player counts, or destructibility in ways that were simply off the table when the game had to boot on a console from 2013. Whether Activision and Infinity Ward actually seize that opportunity or just ship a prettier version of the same formula is the part I'm watching closely. The franchise has felt like it's been running in place since 2019's Modern Warfare, and shedding last-gen is a necessary first step, not a sufficient one.

The announcement also says nothing about Xbox One, though it would be strange to drop one last-gen platform and keep the other. Warzone, the free-to-play battle royale mode, still runs on last-gen machines, and Activision hasn't said whether that will change.