Call of Duty have announced their plans for the 2023 CDL season, with action getting started much earlier than in previous years.
Call of Duty have officially revealed their plan for the 2023 CDL season. The first year of competition on Modern Warfare 2 will feature five Major events and a Championship Weekend.
The season is set to start much earlier than in previous years. In Vanguard, the League didn’t start until February. This time round, action begins in December. The first week of online qualifiers for Major 1 will take place starting on December 2.
With this, the season will also finish earlier. Championship Weekend, which has had an August slot in each of the last three years, has been brought forward to June.
Major 1 Pro-Am
Not only will the League start earlier this season, it will also include amateur teams in a Major event for the first time since Black Ops 4. Those AM teams will be able to compete with the best of the best at the League-hosted Major 1 tournament.
Last season, the closest amateur teams got to the CDL teams was the Pro-Am. Only four teams were allowed to play at that event in Colombus, OH.
This time, the best of the best amateur teams will play against the 12 professional teams in bracket play. The teams that don’t qualify to play at that event will still have the chance to play in Raleigh, with the league also hosting an amatuer event as part of Major 1.
Teams playing at the Pro-Am will be playing for their share of $500,000. CDL teams will also compete for CDL points counting towards qualification for Champs.
The Call of Duty Endowment Bowl and COD: Mobile Champs will also happen at the event.
The rest of the season
Billed as a ”new era” for the Call of Duty League, the League id actually sticking quite close to what has come in the last two seasons.
The 2020 season, which was played on Infinity Ward’s previous title, Modern Warfare 2, featured home stands hosted by each of the teams.
Since Cold War, the league has functioned with online qualifiers followed by Major bracketed events. This format is by far the easiest for Casual fans to keep up-to-date with.
Online qualifiers will precede all five Major events of the season. Three of the other locations for Major events have been confirmed as Boston, Texas and New York.
Boston will be hosting their first Call of Duty League event after hosting the Challengers Open for Major 4 last season.
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Full CDL 2023 Major schedule
- Major 1 Pro-Am - December 15-18
- Boston Breach Major 2 - February 2-5
- OpTic Texas Major 3 - March 9-13
- New York Subliners Major 4 - April 20-23
- Major 5 - May 25-28
- Championship Weekend - June 15-18
The venues for Major 5 and Championship Weekend have not been announced yet.
Potential third mode
A big discussion happens every season about what the third mode should be in competitive Call of Duty. We’ve had Control for the past two years with Domination, Capture the Flag and Uplink before that.
Players who have preloaded the MW2 beta on xbox seem to have uncovered the return of Domination.
A third game mode was not part of the CDL’s announcement for the 2023 season. The players will have to decide if they are happy to play Domination when the game releases on October 28.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Call of Duty League news and updates.
