In what could be considered the most anti-climatic news of the year even though we're just in February, Activision has confirmed that there will be a new Call of Duty game set to appear later this year.
This was revealed by Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg during the publisher's post-earnings call conducted yesterday. But what's interesting here is that Activision has already come out of the gate to say that they're not expecting this year's Call of Duty game to top Treyarch's Black Ops 2.
The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect the new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher…here is increased volatility this year due to the ongoing console transition, which makes predicting the future more challenging than during normal uses in the cycle. For Call of Duty, consistent with our past practices, we are planning for the mainline release in Q4 to be down versus 2012.
While we know there's a new Call of Duty game scheduled later this year, we have no details on what it's going to be exactly, nor who will develop it. In previous years, Treyarch has been alternating with Infinity Ward in pumping out Call of Duty games each year. Now, though, the two studios are joined by Sledgehammer Games (who worked on MW3), Raven Software (helped developed assets for map packs) and Neversoft. So, ruling Treyarch out, we have Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward as the primary suspects.
If rumors are true, then this year's Call of Duty game will be Modern Warfare 4. The question is, will it be released on both current-gen and next-gen consoles?
Whatever the case may be, expect a new Call of Duty game this year and the year after…and until the day we die — or at least until people get tired of it.
Source: GameSpot
