‘No offense to Zelda’ but GTA 6 and COD Modern Warfare 4 are ‘the two biggest games of the year’, Activision exec says

Grand Theft Auto 6 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 are the two biggest games of the year, rather than GTA 6 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, according to an Activision executive.

In an interview with The Game Business, Activision chief marketing officer Tyler Bahl was asked whether the hype around Grand Theft Auto 6 and Nintendo‘s Zelda remake was taking the attention off Modern Warfare 4, which is out in a week’s time (October 23).

The Game Business editor Chris Dring even conceded to Bahl that he referred to GTA 6 and Ocarina of Time as this year’s video game equivalent of ‘Barbenheimer’, and that he hadn’t considered Call of Duty in this, but suggested it was more in terms of which games were more likely to drive new console sales.

“Well, no offense to Zelda, but I think, you know, [GTA 6 and Modern Warfare 4] are the two biggest games of the year,” Bahl replied, “and I think in a lot of ways, more people coming in to the dashboards, more people taking the dust off their Xbox or PlayStation and starting to play again, and loading up that experience is going to be more eyeballs for us, overall

“And then I think at the end of the day, what makes Call of Duty last the test of time, I think, is the community and the social experience. The idea of, being able to play with your friends, right?

“When we look at our research and we say ‘okay, what are the most exciting things about our games? Is it the combat or the gunplay?’ It’s actually ‘my friends are there’, right? ‘I’m able to spend time with my friends.’

“And so, I think that still, we stand on our own there where being able to play with your friends on all different platforms – from Switch 2 this year, which is a new platform for us, all the way to PC and Xbox and PlayStation still – I think makes it a unique opportunity.”

Bahl was also asked whether Activision is prepared for the possibility that player numbers will drop on November 19 when Grand Theft Auto 6 is released, but suggested that this wasn’t guaranteed to happen, and that the opposite could happen.

“You know, we’ll see how it plays out,” he said. “We might actually see, you know, a slight uptick. It might go the other way of ‘hey, I can take a little of this and I can also play a little of that’ and stuff, so we’ll see.”

Circana senior director and video game industry advisor Mat Piscatella stated on Bluesky that the purchase intent for Modern Warfare 4, as of August, was 15% among US console and PC players, versus 10% for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

He noted, however, that these numbers are based on the entire US console and PC player base, and that as a result Zelda’s lower number could actually be considered much more impressive given how fewer US players currently own a Switch 2 compared to a PS5, Xbox Series X/S or PC.

“The Ocarina of Time remake is currently at a 10.4% purchase intent,” he wrote. However, there’s an installed base factor here. You have just shy of 50M PS5/XBS in the US (plus the PC audience) right now compared to fewer than 7M Switch 2’s.

“I sure hope MW4’s purchase intent would be higher given that. On a per potential player rate, the intent on Ocarina is far higher.”

Call of Duty has regularly been the best-selling game in the US every year, placing only behind Rockstar titles like GTA and Red Dead Redemption 2 and, most recently, Hogwarts Legacy in 2023.

Last year, however, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 only placed fifth – its lowest position in decades, behind Battlefield 6, NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4 and Monster Hunter: Wilds.

There’s been a drop in players across the CoD franchise, according to Ampere, which suggests that the series monthly player count was routinely around 40 million in 2024, but in 2026 has been in the mid-20 million range (however, Modern Warfare 2 and 3 data is missing after July 2025, and Black Ops 6 data is missing after July 2026).