“No offense to Zelda”: Activision's marketing chief calls GTA 6 and Modern Warfare 4 the year's two biggest games

Tyler Bahl didn't dodge the question. Asked by The Game Business about the remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which lands between Call of Duty and GTA 6, Activision's chief marketing officer answered: “Well, no offense to Zelda, but [GTA 6 and Modern Warfare 4] are the two biggest games of the year.”

The line made the rounds on October 15 and 16, picked up by Insider Gaming, VGChartz, Nintendo Everything and VGTimes, and it cuts two ways. One is the jab at Nintendo fans, which is what made headlines. The other matters more if you're following GTA 6: Activision says it sees an upside in launching close to Rockstar, while much of the industry has chosen to get out of the way.

Four weeks, three launches

The games in the conversation all land within less than a month:

Dates per VGTimes, VGChartz and Nintendo Everything. VGTimes adds that MW4's campaign early access for pre-order customers opened on October 16.

That's roughly two weeks between each, which is why US outlets have started comparing the season to 2023's “Barbenheimer”, when Barbie and Oppenheimer opened together and lifted each other's box office. Insider Gaming notes that Bahl was asked the question in exactly that context.

More people on consoles, more eyes on Call of Duty

The less-quoted part of the interview is the one that explains the soundbite. Bahl said that if GTA 6 brings more people back to Xbox or PlayStation, that means “more eyeballs for us overall,” as VGChartz reports. Insider Gaming sums up the logic: Rockstar's game would pull lapsed players back and draw in new console buyers, and some of them would end up looking at Call of Duty too.

Our take: the bet lines up with what we've seen so far. Circana recorded the weakest August for US console sales since 2013, and analysts treat GTA 6 as the event most likely to move that number. At the same time, very few publishers wanted to share a date with Rockstar; one rare exception was Goat Simulator 3, which put its Dizzyworld expansion on the very same November 19. Activision isn't on the same day, but it is four weeks out, and says it likes it that way.

Bahl also drew a line between the two products. What keeps Call of Duty going, he said, is “the community and the social experience”: players tell Activision their favorite part isn't the gunplay but that “my friends are there,” according to Nintendo Everything and Insider Gaming. That's a message with an address on it. GTA 6 launches as a single-player campaign, and Rockstar still hasn't confirmed when its online mode arrives.

The number that complicates the jab

Nintendo Everything brought up the data point that tempers the quote. Circana analyst Mat Piscatella posted on Bluesky that in August, 15% of US console and PC players intended to buy Modern Warfare 4, versus 10% for Ocarina of Time.

That looks like a comfortable Call of Duty win, but Piscatella added the caveat himself: the figure covers the whole console and PC audience, and far fewer Americans own a Switch 2 than a PS5, an Xbox or a gaming PC. Counting only people who can actually buy Zelda, interest in the remake would be much higher. VGTimes adds, citing the analyst, that anticipation for MW4 is lower than it was for Black Ops 7 last year.

GTA 6 isn't in that snapshot in any source we read, so the three can't be compared on a single number.

An Activision in recovery mode

Context helps explain the confident tone. Bahl admitted to The Game Business that the company wasn't “happy with every aspect of last year's game” and heard the feedback “loud and clear”; Modern Warfare 4, he said, is “getting back to a grounded military shooter,” as VGChartz quotes. The same VGChartz piece notes that Activision will stop releasing back-to-back entries from the same sub-series, with a future title starting a new sub-franchise. Bahl also cited franchise numbers: 500 million units sold, 100 million free-to-play players and a billion mobile downloads.

In other words, Activision heads into October trying to win back players disappointed by Black Ops 7, and instead of running from GTA 6 it chose to put itself on the podium next to it. It's a marketing line from the head of marketing, and it should be read as one.

Planning your fall

For players, the calendar matters more than the ranking. Anyone buying both big releases has four weeks between them to budget; Switch 2 owners can still fit Zelda in the middle. On the GTA 6 side, remember that the digital pre-load opens on November 12, a week before launch.

What the interview leaves out

In the sources we read, Bahl doesn't share sales targets for MW4 or mention any talks with Take-Two or Rockstar about dates. We also couldn't open the full interview on The Game Business; the quotes above come from Insider Gaming, VGChartz and Nintendo Everything, which match each other. His title varies by outlet: most say chief marketing officer, while Nintendo Everything uses “marketing director”.