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The Call of Duty community is buzzing after a fresh leak dropped some seriously exciting news: a standalone Call of Duty Zombies game might actually be happening, and it could launch alongside the next generation of Xbox consoles.
The report comes from TheGhostOfHope, a well-known and fairly reliable Call of Duty insider who posted on X on February 22.
According to the leaker, Microsoft originally planned to launch Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 as a flagship title for its next-gen console, hoping to compete head-to-head with GTA VI for players’ attention.
But with the next Xbox now reportedly delayed to 2027 or later, partly due to global memory shortages, those plans went out the window, and now Activision is reportedly rethinking everything.
Two Call of Duty games at once? It’s been done before
The idea floating around internally is launching two separate Call of Duty titles alongside the new Xbox: a traditional multiplayer release and a fully standalone Zombies game, with Treyarch reportedly leading development on the latter.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Activision pulled a similar move back in 2016 when it released Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare alongside Modern Warfare Remastered. Two games, one launch window, two very different audiences targeted at once.
The standalone Zombies title would reportedly be updated on an ongoing basis, similar to how Warzone has operated, meaning no more waiting for a new annual Call of Duty entry just to get fresh Zombies content.
Zombies has earned its own game
Honestly? This has been a long time coming. What started as a hidden bonus mode tucked away at the end of Call of Duty: World at War back in 2008 has grown into one of the franchise’s most beloved pillars.
There’s an entire subset of players who buy Call of Duty games exclusively for Zombies. Titles like Black Ops III remained active communities for years after release, almost entirely because of the Zombies content.
A dedicated standalone release would give Treyarch the freedom to build out the mode without the constraints of an annual release cycle, and fans wouldn’t have to download an entire multiplayer suite just to fight off the undead. Storage space alone is a win.
TheGhostOfHope also noted that Microsoft is pushing Activision to be “more agile” and step away from being so rigidly tied to yearly releases. The idea is a more flexible development pipeline that can react faster to market trends, something that, according to the leaker, could have helped Activision capitalize on the extraction shooter wave much sooner than it did.
As always, this is all based on leaks and should be taken with a grain of salt until Activision or Microsoft says something officially. But given how reliable this source has been in the past, it’s hard not to get a little excited.
What do you think, is a standalone Zombies game something you’ve been waiting for, or would you rather keep it bundled with the full Call of Duty experience? Drop your take in the comments, we want to hear from you!