Activision has decided to make a last minute change to Modern Warfare 2 and retain the Call of Duty branding, which the company had announced would be dropped earlier this year to split the franchise into two different franchise titles.

The announcement that Activision will retain the Call of Duty branding for Modern Warfare 2 isn’t surprising, given that research found that brand awareness of the new chapter in the Modern Warfare dropped almost 20% when the Call of Duty branding was not attached to the title. While the spin is that using the COD branding increases the awareness of the title, the truth is that calling the new game Modern Warfare 2 just caused a lot of confusion in consumer minds.

It is currently unknown if Activision plans to retain the COD branding for Modern Warfare titles beyond this release or not, but it is possible that they will slowly again try to phase it out over time to split the franchise into two titles. The box shots that are making the rounds seem to emphasize the Modern Warfare 2 title over the COD branding, but the COD logo is still there for all to see.

Sales expectations for the release of COD Modern Warfare 2 have been set very high by Activision and the company does not want to do anything to hurt potential sales. The company is looking for COD Modern Warfare 2 to be the big seller this holiday season, and the company is suggesting that it will be able to move as many as 11+ million units during the 4th quarter alone; this would make it the one of the largest launches in video game history, if not the largest.