‘Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’ art suggests franchise will return to Steam

A brief appearance of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 artwork on Steam suggests that the upcoming shooter may mark the series’ return to Valve‘s storefront.

As spotted on Reddit (via PCGamesN), artwork for Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently appeared on Steam as part of a “Call Of Duty franchise” banner, which appeared on several titles in the series.

Since the artwork was spotted, Activision Blizzard has already changed the banner to a blank image. The blank banner is visible at the bottom of this page, and although the Modern Warfare 2 artwork is no longer present, you can see the original image here.

While this doesn’t go far enough to confirm that Call Of Duty will return to Steam, it comes as most major publishers have abandoned trying to move their games away from Steam in recent years. Bethesda recently brought its games back to the storefront earlier this year after closing its launcher, while other companies such as EA and Ubisoft now allow their games to sell on Steam though still use their launcher as a required hub.

The last Call Of Duty game to appear on Steam was a remaster of 2007’s Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2017, but the series’ last mainline entry on Steam was Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare in 2016. In that six-year gap, Activision Blizzard has chosen to launch each new Call Of Duty title on Battle.Net – a sore point for many PC fans who would prefer to keep their games in one place.

In February, Valve shared that it was open to adding Xbox Game Pass functionality to Steam. As Microsoft recently acquired Activision Blizzard and shared that Call Of Duty will be available on Game Pass in the future, it’s not a huge stretch for optimistic fans to think this artwork could be related.

In other gaming news, a PUBG: Battlegrounds dataminer has shared that developer Krafton reportedly sent a private investigator to their home.