Could Call of Duty Zombies be free-to-play in the future?

Call of Duty: Vanguard
(Image credit: Activision)

The internet is awash - swarming, you might say - with chatter about the future of Call of Duty Zombies.

The speculation is centered around a single tweet - a prophecy in the shape of a simple undead emoji, tied to a year: 2023. Let’s put aside, for a moment, the fact that the Twitter account in question has a track record of leaks that have run both hot and cold, and focus on the idea itself. Is a COD Zombies release next year feasible? Is it likely?

From the off, the thought appears to contradict a report published by respected Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier earlier this week - which claimed that Activision will delay next year’s Treyarch-developed Call of Duty entry, leaving 2023 without a mainline release for the first time in almost two decades. The move is reportedly a response to the underperformance of last year’s Vanguard, which led executives to believe that a bit of breathing room would do the series good.

Soon after that report, Activision contacted outlets including GamesRadar with a statement: “We have an exciting slate of premium and free-to-play Call of Duty experiences for this year, next year and beyond. Reports of anything otherwise are incorrect. We look forward to sharing more details when the time is right.”

Schreier’s report and Activision’s statement don’t necessarily counteract each other, however. In fact, Schreier mentions a “free-to-play online title” scheduled for next year, developed with help from Zombies originator Treyarch.

The obvious candidate for that free-to-play game is Warzone 2, the now-confirmed follow-up to Activision’s world-eating battle royale. But Warzone’s lead developers have been Infinity Ward and Raven, not Treyarch. It’s possible the latter is onboard to build a dedicated Zombies component, which would be new to COD’s free-to-play offering. The undead have shown up in Verdansk in the past, but only in time-limited events.

That interpretation would track with Treyarch’s role in previous COD games. While the studio headlines its own mainline entries, it has been known to contribute Zombies modes to other games in between - as it did for Vanguard. There, Treyarch’s work featured alongside a campaign and multiplayer suite from sister studio Sledgehammer.

With this year’s Modern Warfare sequel said to include an Escape From Tarkov-style experiment as its third mode, Treyarch’s team would in theory be freed up to contribute to a free-to-play version of COD Zombies planned for next year.

In conclusion, to quote the meme about the European couple on vacation who want to swing:

We ranked the 10 best Call of Duty games. It was tough! Have you seen how many Call of Duty games there are?

Jeremy Peel

Jeremy is a freelance editor and writer with a decade’s experience across publications like GamesRadar, Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer and Edge. He specialises in features and interviews, and gets a special kick out of meeting the word count exactly. He missed the golden age of magazines, so is making up for lost time while maintaining a healthy modern guilt over the paper waste. Jeremy was once told off by the director of Dishonored 2 for not having played Dishonored 2, an error he has since corrected.

Read more
A player wearing a gasmask and holding a gun during the shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Call of Duty season 2 brings back Gun Game and a fan-favorite Zombies weapon we haven't seen in 10 years
Killing Floor 3 screenshots of a member of NIghtfall wearing a gas mask next to images of burning foes that surround the Big in 2025 logo
Killing Floor 3 is bringing us gloriously gory co-op FPS action in 2025, and Tripwire says it's "at its best when you are just barely surviving"
Killing Floor 3 screenshot showing a new ZED with a terrifying body augmentation
Killing Floor 3: Everything we know so far
Dying Light: The Beast screenshot of protagonist Castor Wood fighting a zombie with a blade and torchlight next to the big in 2025 logo
Dying Light: The Beast is blending atmospheric horror with over the top co-op absurdity in 2025: "It's almost unachievable to keep the horror vibe and still have four players when one is teabagging a zombie"
Dying Light The Beast: A screenshot of Kyle Crane in the upcoming game.
Dying Light: The Beast – Everything we know so far
State of Decay 3 screenshot showing a survivor on top of a car, aiming their gun at nearby zombies
State of Decay 3: Everything we know so far
Latest in Call of Duty Warzone
A man riding a motorbike and shooting a gun during the upcoming game, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Rumored Warzone 2025 map Avalon appears to be fully explorable in Black Ops 6 spectator mode, and with it comes a classic Call of Duty: World at War map
Black Ops 6 Separation Anxiety code
Black Ops 6 Separation Anxiety code and puzzle guide
Warzone's Area 99
There's no sign of Call of Duty's beloved Nuketown map in Black Ops 6 - except for its "birthplace" in Warzone's Area 99 and a nuked version in Sandhouse
Warzone 2
Activision is open-sourcing one of the biggest Call of Duty maps ever for AI development and to "expand the knowledge base of the gaming industry"
Warzone 2
Call of Duty: Warzone 2 averages five million new players a day
Warzone 2
Oh no, the invisibility glitch is back in Warzone 2
Latest in News
Balatro
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Death Stranding 2 Collector's Edition
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
The Witcher 3 lead says "not many games" were trying to match the RPG back in 2015, and that meant "there was a risk" to making it in the first place
The Blood of Dawnwalker
The Witcher 3 dev says his new vampire RPG Blood of Dawnwalker wants to challenge genre conventions, but only if "we're changing them to actually achieve some goal"
Daredevil recap: The Defenders
Marvel fans are discussing which of the Netflix series characters would have survived the Blip