Call of Duty, which made its name mining the past for its war stories, will go back to the future once again for the next iteration of the Black Ops series. Treyarch’s second sequel will depict a “dark, twisted future” – and concern the moral quandaries presented by cutting-edge military robotics.
Fans this weekend dug into the source code of the official Call of Duty site, which was updated for the recent announcement of Black Ops 3. They uncovered a description of a sequel built for “next-gen hardware”, which will deploy players into a world where a “new breed” of Black Ops soldier has left stompy metal footprints all over the nature of warfare.
Treyarch describe a future in which “the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead”. It sounds like we should expect monologues on what makes people people, probably from an off-duty Hollywood actor, in the same thematic territory as XCOM: Enemy Within.
Another well-explored theme will be zombies, back again in their own capitalised Zombies mode. Treyarch reckon we’re getting the “deepest and most ambitious Call of Duty ever”, and have been sharing new stories about embeddable implants on their Facebook page.
After the disappointment that was the Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare campaign, a bit of ambition would be nice – and the Black Ops name has always seemed to free its developers from sombre reality. What’d you like to see in this one?