Call of Duty is sick of leaks that "mess with player expectations," allegedly shuts down well-known insider

For as long as I've been covering the Call of Duty scene (which is much closer to a decade than I'd care to admit) leaks have been part and parcel of the annual cycle. Rumors of which Activision studio is making the next game, what it'll be called, where it'll be set, and what kind of content it'll offer regularly spill out into the open, but over the years the amount of credible sources for those leaks have steadily diminished. Following some extremely significant claims from one of the last-remaining, prominent CoD leakers last week, which Activision publicly denied, it seems it's properly had enough. The leaker in question, TheGhostOfHope, claims that they have been "legally demanded" by the company to stop releasing information about the future of Call of Duty.

The straw that appears to have broken the camel's back here is a now-deleted leak from TheGhostOfHope on X last week. When it was still live, their post made some bold claims about how Activision might aim to make a big splash next year to line up with the next generation of Xbox hardware by launching its usual annual multiplayer title plus a standalone Call of Duty Zombies game. The latter is something a lot of Zombies fans have long yearned for. In an unusually public manner, Activision straight-up denied TheGhostOfHope's claims, saying in an X post: "The rumor factory working overtime. This ain't it."

As well as TheGhostOfHope's initial post being deleted, and his X bio now reading "Retired Call of Duty Leaker/Insider," they claim to have been told to stop leaking information about the FPS games by Activision directly.

"Activision has legally demanded that I stop leaking and disseminating confidential information related to Call of Duty/Activision and I am complying with their demands," they say. "Still gonna stick around and chat about official Call of Duty info and anything not related to leaks/confidential information. Cheers for these past few years."

I've reached out to Activision to get 100% confirmation that it has indeed threatened TheGhostOfHope with legal action. However, the official Call of Duty account has been engaging with folks discussing the news on social media, which feels to me like acknowledgement that it has indeed tried to shut down TheGhostOfHope's leak shop.

Replying to Call of Duty content creator 'TDawg', who was questioning whether all of this actually validates TheGhostOfHope's leaks as correct, the official CoD account says: "Nah. Even when leaks are wrong, they still hurt the people building the game and mess with player expectations."

While this statement is certainly true when it comes to the impact of leaks on developers' plans, whether they be right or wrong, this could certainly blow up in Activision's face if it's bluffing and TheGhostOfHope's information turns out to be accurate. However, if it's taking this firm a stance, and doing so in such a public manner, then I think for now we have to believe that those reports of a standalone Zombies game are wide of the mark.