Highlights
- The official Call of Duty X account confirmed on May 4 that the next entry in the franchise is not being developed for PS4.
- Black Ops 7, released in November 2025, was the 13th and final Call of Duty title to ship on the console.
- The move follows a broader industry shift of AAA games not releasing on the aging Sony console.
Activision put rumors of a PS4 release for its next Call of Duty game to rest on May 4 with a post on the franchise's official X account: "Not sure where this one started, but it's not true. The next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4."
The clarification was brief, but what it confirmed carries some weight. Black Ops 7, released in November 2025, was the 13th consecutive Call of Duty entry to ship on PS4 since the console launched in 2013. The franchise had maintained last-gen support longer than almost any other major AAA series this console cycle. That run is now officially over following Activision’s announcement.
The AAA Industry is Moving Away From PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Call of Duty held out longer on last-gen than most of its peers. Other franchises became PlayStation 5 exclusive much sooner. Insomniac dropped PS4 with Spider-Man 2 in 2023. EA's Battlefield 6 is launching exclusively on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Sony itself stopped offering monthly PS4 games to PlayStation Plus subscribers in January 2026 and began removing legacy developer APIs for new PS4 titles in spring 2026.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella told Game File that by 2024, new releases with PS4 versions were seeing less than 10% of total sales volume coming from last-gen in many cases, sometimes significantly less.
The economics had already decided the move to ditch the PS4 for most publishers. Call of Duty was one of the last major holdouts due to its massive audience on older consoles. Now that it has moved on, the AAA last-gen holdouts are largely limited to annual sports titles. EA FC and NBA 2K have continued shipping PS4 versions, though for how many more cycles is an open question.
The PS4 is approaching 13 years on the market. By the time the 2026 Call of Duty ships, it will have outlasted most expectations for how long a console generation sustains major third-party support. That is not a small achievement for the hardware, but the transition was always going to come.
