Is Call of Duty Headed to the Esports World Cup?

Are Call of Duty and Warzone headed to the Esports World Cup?

Are Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone coming to the Esports World Cup next month? Only the Esports World Cup Foundation and Activision Blizzard really know, and they aren’t talking.

On Tuesday a tipster (who asked not to be identified) informed The Esports Advocate and Dexerto (who published this report yesterday) via email that code in the official Esports World Cup website (under Games and Tournaments) showed two announced tournaments for Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare II and the battle royale version of the game Call of Duty Warzone.

That code, which we have provided screenshots of below, contained code snippets with keywords for games that are currently marked as “to be announced” in Week 1 and Week 7 of the eight-week event taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia starting in July.

It should be noted that the code in question has been removed from the page— according to our own inspection on Wednesday afternoon—but on Tuesday the website code pointed towards games marked as “corwz” and “codnw.”

Our tipster pointed out that the game marked as “corwz,” which is later listed in the code snippet as “COD: Warzone,” also lists a $1M USD prize pool for a competition that would run in Week 1, from July 3 – 6.

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The other code, “codnw,” is later found in the website code as ”COD: MW3,” also has a $1M prize pool, and is listed as running in Week 8 from Aug. 15 – 18.

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Sources The Esports Advocate spoke to at teams that are partnered through the Esports World Cup Club Support Program indicated that either a decision hasn’t been made on Call of Duty being at the Esports World Cup yet, or they had not heard any news on the subject, save “rumors” about the game being there (referring to the Dexerto article).

TEA also reached out to teams that compete in professional Warzone competitions such as the World Series of Warzone (who are obviously not partnered teams), and they indicated that they have not been invited to any events in Riyadh, nor have they had any discussions with the Esports World Cup Foundation.

Similarly, partnered organizations that don’t field a Call of Duty League team we spoke to on Tuesday said that they had no knowledge of these games being part of the event.

TEA also reached out to the Esports World Cup Foundation and Activision Blizzard, but they did not respond to a request for comment.

While it is unclear and unconfirmed that Call of Duty and Warzone are officially part of the Esports World Cup, it is important to note from those snippets of code that whoever built the website anticipated that these games would be in the mix by the time the event kicks off in July. The removal of the code really poses more questions than answers; was it removed because an announcement is pending or because someone made a mistake and forgot to remove it?

TEA will continue to follow this story as it develops.