Where Does Call of Duty Go Now?

 

Call of Duty Black Ops is upon us, most of us, and we are already trying to decipher where the next entry is heading and who will be holding up the project. Will it be headed up by Infinity Ward and be Modern Warfare 3? Will it be handed off to Sledgehammer and be put during another war that has yet to be captured? Or will we end up with space fighting alongside Master Chief and Marcus Fenix hunting aliens?

We can already lay money down that this will continue to be an annualized series. Activision likes making money, and since the past several years COD has been only gaining sales numbers, it will continue this yearly tradition. It has became one of the only titles besides sports games that can get away with this, and I know its hard to cope with but the 5.6 million people on day one is enough to say that this is something we will be getting every year until it starts to lose steam. I'm a naysayer myself always saying that they should skip a year on the Call of Duty series, but yet again I preorder the game and enjoy both the single and multiplayer modes of the games. I'm not a hardcore player, but these games have such a polish to them that it's almost a little hard to stay away from if you have played any in the past.  

Call of Duty Black Ops, or BLOPS as what the internet has started calling it which I quite enjoy, has finally proven that Treyarch has the power to create a good COD game. Sure World at War and others were good games but was always ridiculed because they were always compared as the ugly step child to Infinity Ward. Now we are clueless as to what is going on with all the studios are going to be doing with this series. Since Treyarch is on track to bringing the most revenue with BLOPS, then we can almost guarantee we will be playing a Treyarch COD in 2012. Which brings us to Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer.

It has already been announced that Sledgehammer is making a COD game. Visiting their official website, which I might add has those awful flash animations as its loading up, you will see plain as day that they are currently working on it but it's still a studio that is trying to get their staff together. Unless they are contracting some of their work out, I'm not quite sure a brand new studio can get out a title of this caliber in under two years, which rules them out in my opinion and could push back Treyarch another year or move them up or who the hell knows.

Visiting the IW site is a little weird; it seems to be really quiet on their side. Also their forums seem to be thinning out as well, but I couldn't really poke around too much since I'm not a member of the site, and don't plan on ever being one. Still though, I'd say this company is working on another COD game but which one?

Here is what I'm thinking of the whole thing: Infinity Ward is working on Modern Warfare 3 that will be released in holiday 2011. This game will close the story on all the characters introduced in the MW series and Price will become a dictator of America. Sledgehammer is working on a future title in the series that may or may not be space marines. Maybe they are space black ops or space navy soldiers. Maybe they are working with some Bungie folks as they are pitching their new IP to Activision; Bungie has delved into space a time or two. Then Treyarch is continuing its story with WOW and BLOPS and developing another title using the same characters, or at least bringing it full circle with those characters. Maybe Woods is Price's dad and then bring COD as a whole together. Not sure any of that is possible but I'm sure they could craft something like that together.

Do we want COD in space? I feel like people that are asking for a radical change would be happy with a completely different setting besides Earth. Honestly though, it's going to be hard to convince Activision to make drastic changes to a game that has made them so much money. Just do me a favor and keep Kinect out of the equation.