Call of Duty Cuts PS4 and Xbox One After 13 Years of Last-Gen Support

Activision confirmed on May 4, 2026, that this year’s Call of Duty is not being built for the PlayStation 4, ending a 13-year run of last-gen support and locking PS4 and Xbox One owners out of the rumored Modern Warfare 4 when it launches this fall on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The decision arrived as a single line on the franchise’s official X account. It killed a weekend leak from datamining handle HeyImAlaix that had claimed the game was being playtested on PS4 hardware.

That timing matters. Black Ops 7 ended 2025 as the fifth-best-selling game in the United States, the lowest annual ranking for a Call of Duty title since 2008’s World at War, and Battlefield 6 took the franchise’s full-year sales crown for the first time in 16 years. Modern Warfare 4 is now Activision’s first attempt to reset, and it’s doing so with roughly 100 million last-gen owners on the outside.

The Tweet That Killed Last-Gen

The confirmation took 21 words. Activision’s Call of Duty handle wrote on May 4 that the next Call of Duty is not being developed for PS4, then went silent. The post quoted no one, named no leaker, and offered no follow-up.

That leak originated with prolific Call of Duty datamining account HeyImAlaix, who claimed Modern Warfare 4 was being playtested on PlayStation 4 hardware. Activision’s reply did not address Xbox One at all. Industry consensus, including reporting from Insider Gaming, treats both last-gen platforms as out.

The post left two things unsaid. It did not name the 2026 game, and it did not detail platforms beyond what was being denied. Pre-order strings dug out of the official Call of Duty companion app earlier in 2026 still point to Modern Warfare 4 as the working title, with Infinity Ward listed as the lead studio.

https://x.com/CallofDuty/status/2051391506699678107

Why Activision Finally Pulled the Plug

The split with last-gen lands at the worst commercial moment Call of Duty has had in over a decade.

Black Ops 7 opened more than 50% below Black Ops 6 in Europe in its first week. The game finished 2025 as the fifth-best-selling title in the United States, behind Battlefield 6, NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter: Wilds, per Circana’s monthly U.S. video game sales chart. The franchise has not finished outside the U.S. top four since 2008.

Battlefield 6 itself ended a 16-year Call of Duty streak at the top of U.S. annual full-game dollar sales, drawing both spending and attention that had defaulted to the franchise since 2009.

Microsoft also pulled its subsidy. In April 2026, Xbox confirmed Call of Duty annual launches will no longer be Game Pass day-one titles, and an internal estimate cited in court filings pegged Black Ops 6’s Game Pass inclusion as a $300 million revenue cost on console and PC sales.

Former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick put the slump on record in a December 2025 Delaware court filing.

“Call of Duty is on track to perform over 60 percent below last year because of intense competition from titles like Battlefield.”

How Many Players Just Got Locked Out

The cut hits a smaller pool than it would have five years ago, but it is still enormous.

Sony’s December 2024 quarterly breakdown, available through Sony’s investor relations earnings library, counted 49 million PS4 monthly active users alongside 49 million on PS5. Microsoft has not published console-level Xbox One MAU data, but the platform shipped 58 million lifetime units before sales formally ended in 2022.

PlayStation share of Call of Duty buyers is outsized. “PlayStation platforms accounted for 82% of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 total console full game dollar sales during October,” wrote Mat Piscatella, executive director and video game industry advisor at Circana, in his October 2024 sales recap on Bluesky. The PS4 slice within that 82% was meaningful, even as PS5 took the larger half.

• 49 million: PS4 monthly active accounts in Sony’s December 2024 quarter.
• 58 million: lifetime Xbox One units shipped before Microsoft ended sales in 2022.
• 82%: PlayStation share of Black Ops 6 console dollar sales in October 2024.
• 13: consecutive years of Call of Duty annual entries on PS4 since Ghosts in 2013.

What Modern Warfare 4 Gains From the Cut

Last-gen support has been a tax on Call of Duty’s annual cadence for years. The PS4 and Xbox One ship with an eight-core AMD Jaguar CPU, 8GB of unified memory, and a mechanical hard drive, hardware now three full performance generations behind the PS5 Pro.

Cutting that target opens room for the engine team. Infinity Ward can design around an SSD by default, push higher-resolution textures, and drop the file-size compromises that have pushed recent Call of Duty installs past 200GB on PC. The likely engine wins:

• Faster level streaming and shorter respawn loads, no longer budgeting around HDD seek times.
• Larger Warzone maps freed from the 8GB shared-memory ceiling that capped older designs.
• Higher-fidelity destruction physics, the Battlefield 6 feature that drew most 2025 press attention.
• Longer single-player campaigns; Activision has telegraphed a return to bigger story content after Black Ops 7’s truncated mode.

Activision has not promised any of those upgrades. But reviewer complaints about reused assets, scaled-back lighting and texture pop-in have all originated in last-gen target specs. Consolidating around one rendering path also lightens load on a Microsoft Gaming staff that lost 1,900 jobs in January 2024.

Everything We Know About Modern Warfare 4

The 2026 release is not officially titled yet. Pre-order metadata pulled from the Call of Duty companion app earlier this spring points to Modern Warfare 4, with Infinity Ward, the studio behind 2007’s Modern Warfare, leading development.

Industry reports target an October 2026 launch window, in line with the franchise’s standard fall slot. The full reveal is expected at Microsoft’s Xbox Wire announcement of the Games Showcase 2026, scheduled for June 7 at 10am PT.

The shift away from last-gen and Game Pass is sharper than the bare lines suggest. Modern Warfare 4 will be the first Call of Duty in three years to skip Game Pass on day one and the first since 2013’s Ghosts to abandon last-gen consoles entirely. Both reversals point to a franchise pricing itself back toward premium, full-margin sales.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will My PS4 Copy of Older Call of Duty Games Still Work?

Yes. The change applies only to the 2026 release. Black Ops 7, Modern Warfare III, Black Ops 6, and Warzone all continue to function on PS4 and Xbox One under their existing terms. Sony has also kept manufacturing PS4 hardware in select markets through 2026, so existing libraries and online services keep running for the foreseeable future.

Does the Cut Affect Warzone on PS4 and Xbox One?

Activision has not confirmed last-gen Warzone support past the Modern Warfare 4 cycle. The free-to-play mode currently still ships to PS4 and Xbox One under the Black Ops 7 client. Past transitions, including the 2022 move to Modern Warfare II content, retired the older clients within roughly 12 months of the cross-gen cut. A similar wind-down is widely expected.

How Can a PS4 Player Still Play Modern Warfare 4?

Upgrade. The 2026 game ships only on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Sony and Microsoft both run free digital data transfers from older consoles, and PS5 carries forward purchased PS4 game saves where the developer supports it. PC players will need at minimum an SSD and a CPU on par with a Ryzen 5 5600 or Intel i5-12400 to match expected current-gen targets.

When Will Modern Warfare 4 Be Officially Revealed?

The full reveal is expected at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, 2026, beginning at 10am PT or 6pm BST. Activision has historically opened pre-orders within hours of the showcase, and the Call of Duty companion app already houses unreleased pre-order strings. Expect a fall launch in October, in line with Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 cadence.

Will Modern Warfare 4 Launch on Xbox Game Pass?

No, not on day one. Microsoft confirmed in April 2026 that future Call of Duty annual entries will no longer be included in Game Pass Ultimate at launch. Subscribers retain back-catalog Call of Duty access, including the Call of Duty Black Ops 7 official game page, but Modern Warfare 4 itself must be purchased separately at retail or digitally.

Why Did Activision Drop PS4 and Xbox One Support Now?

Three pressures combined. Black Ops 7 sales fell sharply year-over-year, Battlefield 6 broke the franchise’s grip on U.S. dollar sales, and last-gen hardware caps engine ambition. Sony itself stopped manufacturing the PS4 Pro in 2023, and most major Japanese publishers had gone PS5-exclusive on AAA titles by 2024. Call of Duty was among the last cross-gen holdouts, and the math finally tipped.

The June 7 showcase will tell players most of what they need to know about the next 12 months of Call of Duty. The bigger test arrives in October, when Activision finds out whether a current-gen-only Modern Warfare 4 can rebuild a franchise that ended 2025 fifth on the U.S. charts. PS4 and Xbox One owners shut out of that test will be watching too, just from somebody else’s screen.