Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Projected to be The Biggest Game of the Year

This fall is going to have a ton of big AAA titles to throw your money at.  There’s a new Battlefield game coming from Electronic Arts and DICE with Battlefield 5, a new Call of Duty from Treyarch in Black Ops 4, and of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 coming from Rockstar Games.

According to a research note from  Piper Jaffray, Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 might do better than them all.  The analyst projects that in a best case scenario, Black Ops 4 will sell nearly 24 million copies by the end of this calendar year.

This best case scenario for Battlefield would see EA selling nearly 18 million copies of Battlefield 5. As for Rockstar Games, the analyst projects that the best case would be selling around 17 million copies.  These last two projections calculate these sales figures with an extra few months of sales, pushing the bar out to the end of the fiscal year in March.

Apparently the expectations in the financial world are somewhat grounded for Red Dead Redemption 2, and it doesn’t seem like the bean counters believe that the open world Western will have the same success as GTA V.  This isn’t exactly new information.  The CEO of Take Two recently talked about the sales potential for Red Dead 2, and said that GTA V was not a realistic benchmark when it comes to sales.

As for Call of Duty vs. Battlefield, the war rages on.  If these projections hold true, Call of Duty will once again reign supreme when it comes to sales of the shooters.  With Battle Royale modes coming to both games, these numbers could shift significantly.  It’s really too early to tell regarding Call of Duty’s Black Out Mode or Battlefield’s Battle Royale.  Neither company has shown gameplay of the mysterious modes that’ll look to pull players away from the market leaders in the genre.

Just looking at the hyperbolic success of Fortnite: Battle Royale and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in recent years, if one of the Battle Royale modes becomes popular with streamers and players, it could very well lead to even bigger sales than are already projected, for either game.

Of course, these are just projections from one analyst, but it appears that despite the recent controversies surrounding Black Ops 4 with its DLC and Battlefield 5 with its customization options, they’re going to do incredibly well for the publishers.