Reports have surfaced today suggesting that the next Call of Duty game will be set in space, highlighting Activision’s continued plan to essentially transform the series into Titanfall.
With its introduction of free-running and sci-fi elements, Call of Duty has steadily been following in the vein of Respawn Entertainment’s first-person shooter for the past few years, though the latest report from Eurogamer that the series will make the transition to the “very distant future” in its next iteration is the biggest leap in this direction thus far. While the original Titanfall managed to only achieve a modicum of CoD‘s continued success, it’s clear that CoD‘s rotation of developers have looked towards their rival for inspiration on multiple occasions, leading to the latest revelation that the series will allegedly enter “sci-fi territory.”
The report corroborates industry insider Shinobi‘s claim that the upcoming game, developed by Infinity Ward, will be set in the far-flung future, with it being imaginable that it would feature the same free-running gameplay as seen in the likes of Black Ops 3. These parkour elements were arguably best implemented by Titanfall, which is set to receive a sequel of its own at some point, with many pointing to a speculative release date of autumn 2016. This could mean that Activision is looking to pull out all the stops to make Call of Duty exciting again, potentially out of a fear that a multi-platform Titanfall 2 release (the original launched only on the Xbox One and PC) could prove detrimental to their own sales.
While the original Titanfall failed to stand toe-to-toe with CoD in terms of sales, it’s a possibility that if the sequel builds upon the foundations laid by its predecessor and introduces more modes/content, it could become the next big player in the FPS genre. Activision may be aware of this, forcing its blockbuster franchise to venture down a new path in order to shut out its competition, and while this could well lead to the series’ “jumping the shark” moment it’s certainly made us more interested in a Call of Duty game than we have been for quite a while.
