The Future of Call of Duty

 

Back in November when Modern Warfare 3 launched, the game demolished sales records and was proclaimed as the biggest opening “across all forms of entertainment.”No one in any form of entertainment can say they made $775 million in just five days.

After such a successful launch, it was no surprise that analysts stated that Call of Duty will once again dominate the video game industry in 2012. Company Baird Equity Research believes Call of Duty, alongside a possible Grand Theft Auto release, will culminate nearly 25% of all game related revenues.

Where will the gaming giant head next though? Will we continue the fight in world war three, revisit the lush jungle of Vietnam, or will we go in another, completely new direction? We can expect developer Treyarch to be the ones crafting together the next entry, assuming Activision sticks to the Infinity Ward (IW) & Treyarch cycle.

In the past, Treyarch has never clung to the same IP as IW has done, always whipping together an entirely new adventure for us. If they decide to go towards the “new” route, my best guess would be that some sort of space installment was on the way. Last year, a rumor that a future warfare Call of Duty game set in space was being talked about; Activision even filed for the domain name (Fuure Warfare, Advanced Warfare, Secret Warfare, and Space Warfare).

However, rumors say that any Call of Duty game set in the future has to come under IW's jursdiction, thus the meaning for the 60s setting in Black Ops.

The realistic option points towards a sequel to Black Ops. It has been speculated that the sequel would arrive later this year and has been spotted by numerous french gaming websites. The game even popped up on Amazon France, with a release date for fall. The listing was taken down the next day.

To stir up even more trouble for Activision, a software artist's CV on LinkedIn references Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 as a game that the developer is working on for Nerve Software, which has been taken down as well.

Even more interesting though is the fact that the Call of Duty franchise is heading to the PlayStation Vita this fall. A PlayStation executive said that Call of Duty on the PS Vita is “an absolute game changer” for the handheld.

If the Vita adaption does launch later this year in-line with other platforms, fans of the shooter could play the game anywhere they can pick up a connection. The fact on whether or not it'll be a fully featured version of the game is yet to be announced. How exciting would it be though to play Call of Duty anywhere you'd like?!

Other rumors that popped up late last year went over a possible third-person Call of Duty project that was to be developed by Sledgehammer. Apparently, when Sledgehammer was founded at Activision a couple years ago, they started working on a third-person Call of Duty game.

But after the Infinity Ward fiasco last year, the company moved over to assist in the development with Modern Warfare 3 (MW3). Glen Shoefield from Sledgehammer said that “we'll probably cancel it” in an interview with CVG. He went on to comment on how neat the game was beginning to look, but they really liked the opportunity to work on MW3 more.

Schofiel also said their next project would probably be another Call of Duty game that they would hopefully get all to themselves, which makes me wonder if that is going to be the Call of Duty in “space.” It is odd that they would cancel their current project though. Why not just pick it up whee they left off?

The number of options for the Call of Duty franchise to explore are countless, especially with three developers and $775 million to lean on, not to mention the current 1.5 million paid subscribers though Call of Duty: Elite. I personally would like to see the Vita and space project kick off as I think both avenues could branch off to all kinds of additional success. One thing's for sure though, Call of Duty isn't going away for a long, long time.