The publisher Activision Blizzard and the studio Infinity Ward are taking new steps to engage fans with Call of Duty: Warzone, their free shooter. The new Season 5 is announced through a staged leak: The biggest “Call of Duty” streamer on Twitch receives mysterious mail and shows a leak-like trailer. The start date for Season 5 is apparently August 5.
This is how the leak was prepared: Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff is currently the most-watched Twitch streamer for Call of Duty, even ahead of TimTheTatman. He is a well-known console player and embodies the type “Easy-going bodybuilder with a rough voice and a three-day beard”, a cool entertainer and really strong shooter player, even if he didn’t quite make it in Fortnite for the World Championship, as those nerds were in the way.
Last night at around 7:10 PM, he announced that he was going live. He said, “they have a cool Season 5 video.”
In the stream, he then recounts that he was storm-rang at 8:30 in the morning. At the door stood a man who had a package for him.
Nickmercs then held up an oversized black object to the camera, a tower from a chess game. At the bottom of the tower was a USB stick. There was a video on it with a Season 5 leak, as he said, a trailer.
It is a 10-second video, and some nerds like SpyherPK are going to analyze it and evaluate every crumb of it. But he is not that kind of person, instead, he will just show it now.
Nickmercs also informed his viewers that more information about Season 5 would follow.
Start date for Season 5 apparently August 5
This is what you can see in the video: The date seen in the video is set for August 5, 2020, just before the current season pass in Call of Duty ends. This is likely to be the new release date for Season 5.
The video shows tracks, a train is apparently rushing past and a helicopter flies over the scene. The whole thing is staged in a “Found Footage” look, just as one imagines a grainy leak. A clock points to 10:46 AM.
What’s behind it: The companies are now finding new, clever ideas on how to keep the excitement for their “endless games” high. Already with Season 4 in May 2020, Activision Blizzard utilized the prominence of Twitch streamers and staged calls from Captain Price, a character of the game, to the biggest streamers.
This with Nickmercs is now the next level. The “leak” is clearly a PR stunt, in which the streamer was surely involved.
The train that is heard in the video could indicate new content for Season 5. Our Call of Duty expert Maik Schneider has already summarized the most important information about the new season in a major article. He also assumed August 5 as the new start date:
