Welp. Guess its that time of the year folks. Activision just announced the next title in the Call of Duty series. The new game will be titled “Call of Duty: Ghosts”. And here I was thinking there might not be a CoD this November. Yeah right. Check out the teaser trailer below.

 

According to the press release Activision sent out on Wednesday, Ghosts will provide, “a riveting all-new gameplay experience built on an entirely new story, setting and cast of characters, all powered by a new, next generation Call of Duty engine that redefines the series for the next generation.”

Right. Typical marketing spiel that gives away nothing but admittedly the idea of a new engine is intriguing. That and the fact that its going to be new faces this time around. So no Capt Price then? Aaaw. But (and this is pure speculation on my part), that ghost mask may have something to do with the character named Ghost that showed up in the earlier games. That could be something. I always liked Ghost.

Love it or hate it, there is no denying the fact that every CoD release is a significant (dare I say it?) pop culture event. Black Ops 2 made over $ 1 BILLION within 15 days, and since the release of the first title in 2003, the series has sold over a 100 million copies. In other words, sweet tap dancing Jesus! But I can’t help but wonder how long Activision can keep milking the franchise. In terms of gameplay, the last Black Ops did try to do some interesting things but it still wasn’t enough to hide the fact that the “whack a mole” FPS model is getting long in the tooth.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of CoD. And the single player, albeit not as mindblowing as that of the original Modern Warfare, is still acceptable   The one thing I will always complain about though, is dedicated servers. Activision can spend millions on marketing (and it does) but without dedicated servers, this WILL be a no buy. Regardless of how many Spartans and Ninjas they show me.

Now if they have ninjas in the game. Hmmm.

[Activision will be showing some footage at Microsoft’s next generation Xbox event on 21 May.]