Call of Duty titles could be coming to the Epic Games store

Call of Duty is becoming ever-reliant on digital copies of its annual instalments, with Modern Warfare 3 physical sales being down 25% in the UK compared to last year's predecessor.

This has already seen Call of Duty HQ come under a lot of strain and criticism, with players relying on the overarching hub to meander through to the new title.

Yet, it looks like Microsoft is gearing up to push the digital CoD era much further and wider than it does already. Could the new owner of the shooter series potentially be looking to expand on the market to which it sells games on PC?

Activision hints at Epic Games store arrival for Call of Duty

Although Call of Duty's roots are firmly set in the history of console gaming, which is only strengthened by Xbox's new acquisition, the power of PC play appears to be a venture worth diving into for Activision. The publisher has now hinted at CoD games landing on the Epic Games store in the future.

Following the release of Modern Warfare 3, the Activision website has added a button to link your Epic Games account to your Call of Duty account. It even throws up the option to link your new game code to the platform - although this appears not to work, given MW3 is not yet active on the Store.

The "select your platform" options now contain PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Steam, Battle.Net and Epic, which indicates that the series will land on Epic Games Store in the future.

Call of Duty looks set for a PC push in the new digital age

Click to enlarge

As of the 2023 fiscal year, Activision revealed in an earnings report that PC players were the main bulk of sales for their main title, lapping only behind Mobile sales for the entire franchise.

The report indicated that for the main games sold, PC sales were above those of both Xbox and PlayStation combined (this could be skewed, knowing that Diablo Immortal, Overwatch, and WaW: Dragonfight all launched in 2022 too). 

A movement towards Epic Games Store could be a no-brainer for Call of Duty, as the platform registered a whopping 230 million unique users throughout 2022 (as per Epic itself), a figure which will likely rise again this year. 

In comparison, Steam has a monthly player count of roughly 120 million (stats from April 2023), with Call of Duty attracting a peak of 190,273 concurrent players on the platform following the release of Modern Warfare 3.

Whether Epic Games can begin generating similar numbers through its store - if this move actually happens - is yet to be seen. Either way, PC gaming appears to be the future for Call of Duty, even though the series now lies in the hands of Xbox owners, Microsoft.