In an unusual turn of events, a rumor about a cancelled game collaboration turned into a rumor about an upcoming game collaboration.
As reported by Videogamer, a Twitter user named The Ghost of Hope revealed that Halo was set to have a crossover with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III. Apparently Master Chief was going to become playable in one of the six seasons that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III received.
The Ghost of Hope doesn’t know why these plans were scrapped, and that’s certainly disappointing, but it also invites inquiry onto the mystery of it. While it is only one year since Microsoft completed their acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, they could have easily made arrangements for this crossover even if that deal wasn’t completed, or didn’t work out.
Activision has found substantial success feeding the Call of Duty fanbase’s appetite for novelty, particularly in light of how Fortnite has been doing franchise and IP crossovers. And so, recent Call of Duty games has seen the entry of a similarly unlikely coterie of guest characters to play and fight.
Call of Duty’s strange guest roster has included the Shredder, Nicki Minaj, Godzilla, Neymar Jr., the T-1000, Rhea Ripley, Paul Atreides, Lara Croft, and Cheech and Chong.
Speaking of which, Master Chief has appeared in Fortnite himself, as well as in Rainbow Six Siege. If anything, the real question here is why it took this long for this crossover to happen.
But then, another Twitter user, CODIIIntel, replied to The Ghost of Hope, claiming that this crossover was being saved for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the next big game in the franchise that’s coming net week.
Now, if that was all we had to go on, we would consider that this rumor isn’t entirely credible. What if CODIIIntel is wishcasting more than they are leaking information they actually knew?
But we think the rumor should be taken seriously, because of Rebs Gaming. Rebs reported on this claim that this crossover is coming to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. If Rebs’ source is CODIIIntel, it means that Rebs did his due diligence and verified CODIIIntel’s identity and credibility.
If this is true, it would be hard to argue with this decision. In spite of its financial success, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was not a critical darling, and that affected its buyers and player numbers. Microsoft did not want to waste this Master Chief cameo on that game, when they stand to benefit more from adding it to their first big real Call of Duty to come to the market.
Subsequently, this Master Chief cameo could help upsell those Halo players to check out the latest Call of Duty. It’s really such a precious little crossover that Microsoft will want to make sure that it hits exactly right. So keep your eyes out on Microsoft’s marketing for the rest of the year; they may get aggressive for this one.
