The Red Door Xbox listing hints at major Call of Duty 2020 announcement
Come walk through the Red Door.
We are already in the second half of July, long past the point in time when the annual Call of Duty game is usually announced, and Activision has not made any formal announcements despite a plethora of leaks. But that could change very soon if a new Microsoft Store listing for a game called "The Red Door" is any indication because it's reportedly a codename for an early versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
What listing has appeared? The listing for The Red Door appeared on the Microsoft Store with little to no fanfare sometime on Wednesday or early Thursday. While this listing includes only a little bit more information about the game and doesn't mention Call of Duty outright, it matches up with a PlayStation Store leak from a few weeks ago that did.
The PSN listing for The Red Door included a content ID tag of "COD2020INTALPHA1," with the "COD2020" line making it seem like this was a Call of Duty 2020 alpha build in disguise.
This is the official image for The Red Door, which appears to show a maze within a keyhole.
What does this listing confirm? The fact that this same title has now appeared on the Microsoft Store makes it seem like some kind of major reveal and Alpha test for the next Call of Duty title could be imminent. The official title is rumored to be Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which would fit with the mysterious tone of The Red Door. For now, we can just analyze the new information the storefront gives it.
It has an M for Mature rating because of "Intense Violence, Blood, Language," which is similar to the previous Call of Duty games. The Red Door also comes in at a whopping 81.65 GB, which is massive for an alpha but on par with the early size of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
"There is more than one truth," the official description for The Red Door reads. "If you go looking for answers, be ready to question everything and accept that nothing will ever be the same. The Red Door awaits, do you dare step through it?" While this doesn't reveal much about the game itself, it definitely feeds into the Cold War intrigue that the Black Ops subseries was originally known for. But at face value, it's also vague enough that it could fit into sci-fi or horror genres.
When could the next Call of Duty be revealed? As of right now, this The Red Door leak is our only clue that a Call of Duty reveal is imminent. One has to wonder when the game might finally be revealed, especially because Activision has never missed out on launching a new Call of Duty game each calendar year since the series first launched in 2003.
There are a couple of possibilities in terms of when and where an announcement could happen. As the Call of Duty series is big enough on its own, Activision could simply just drop the announcement sometime in late July or early August and hold the beta shortly after. For 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the beta went live on September 12 — just over a month before the game's full release. Might we expect something similar?
Given the fact that this new listing is on the Microsoft Store, it seems very possible that the game will be announced at the Xbox Games Showcase taking place on July 23, 2020. It's the biggest gaming showcase in the near future, and Venture Beat has already teased that the game will appear there. If that's true, it means we only have a week to go until the reveal of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will reportedly be released in late 2020.
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