Towards the end of last month, Activision surprised us by dropping a remaster of the beloved 2009 hit . Well, it would only have been surprising if you were one of the few Call Of Duty fans who’d already been made aware of the smorgasbord of leaks and rumours that had been circulating ahead of the game’s official release…but still. A surprise for some.

Regardless of whether it came as a surprise or not (it probably didn’t), there can’t have been many of us who weren’t thrilled to see one of the best Call Of Duty titles to date get a fresh coat of paint. We all set about spending a joyous weekend playing through the game’s memorable campaign all over again. Gasping at Commander Shepard’s villainous betrayal, and tearing it up as we stormed the Gulag. Good times.

The only catch? The campaign was where this began and ended. The game’s multiplayer component – so beloved by so many in the 2009 original – was missing. The official word from Activision at the time made sense: The publisher, along with developer Infinity Ward, didn’t want to fragment the playerbase of 2019’s

“Beginning with last year, the focus has been to bring players together seamlessly in one unified online multiplayer playground,” Activision wrote in a statement.

While that’s certainly a shame, Activision did go on to suggest that more fan-favourite maps from previous Modern Warfare games would eventually be added to the 2019 release. Fair enough. However, a new report from leaker The Gaming Revolution claims that there’s another reason Infinity Ward and Activision chose to abandon ‘s multiplayer.

TGR correctly predicted the remaster, and recently teased a bunch of other incoming remasters and remakes from Activision. It seems like he has a pretty solid source at the publisher, then. In a new video, he alleges that during development of the remaster, ‘s multiplayer was changed so much that they were nervous fans would end up disliking the game.

“I have heard some recent information,” he explained. “That apparently a reason as to why it hasn’t released yet is because the game is apparently very different to the original and they’ve changed a lot of things, and they don’t think the community will like it.”

“So they don’t know if they’re ever going to release it,” he continued. “I have heard that they are still testing it out so I’m assuming they are still changing things. I feel like it is still going to be coming out at some point, I just really do not know when. It really wouldn’t surprise me if it’s not until a year from now.”

To be clear, you should take this with a heavy pinch of salt. For now, the official word remains that Activision didn’t want to split the community – and that makes sense. With that said, there could always have been more than one reason behind the decision to leave multiplayer behind. At least for now.