That's Black Ops 3 announced then. Not World at War 2, as some Internet Bastards had tried to make people believe, or even Big Red One 2, which is probably good as people may have thought it was a football game or something.
Instead, it's back to the grungy alternate drone-filled future in Black Ops 3, which – if the blurb that has been released is anything to go by – will be another dour journey into the world of men doing gruff man stuff, but with TECHNOLOGY. Sigh.
I mean, just read this brief synopsis. Read the words aloud, in a clear voice. In fact, read it like trailer voice over man. "A dark, twisted future where a new breed of Black Ops soldier emerges and the lines are blurred between our own humanity and the technology we created to stay ahead, in a world where cutting-edge military robotics define warfare." It sounds like something a bored 14 year old would doodle in the back of a textbook just after lunch during a particularly boring Wednesday afternoon RE lesson.
I know what you're thinking: every Call of Duty is like this, Steve. You could use that same blurb to describe Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, a game you really liked, allegedly. Well, yes. That's the point. Treyarch had a chance to move away from the future tech stuff with its latest game, mainly because Advanced Warfare did it so much better than Black Ops 2. Do we really need two future-set Call of Duty games?
There was a feeling, in this office at least, that Sledgehammer had rather stolen the Blops developer's thunder with its last game, incorporating exotic tech and weaponry while not moving too far away from the CoD base. It worked so well that I – and others – wondered where Treyarch would go. Surely they wouldn't bring Kenny Powers and co back for another run at a setting that another dev in the same franchise had already nailed?
Especially as, well, Blops 2 was a bit crap. Multiplayer was OK, if a little too gadget heavy for me. But the single-player was insane bullshit: Manuel Noriega was in it, a man got his kneecaps blown off and survived, one of the main characters was inexplicably 102 years old, and at one point you turned into the Predator.
It just didn't come anywhere close to the original Black Ops' mix of intriguing historical settings and elaborate set pieces. Yeah, that game had a scene where you demanded a man talk before putting glass in his mouth and smashing it, and you had an imaginary best friend who killed people, kind of. But it used its (particularly Southeast Asian) backdrops well, and it actually felt like you could have perhaps been on, um, some actual black ops.
What is Blops' USP these days? It's not really the ops, as without the historical theme they feel like they could be from any Call of Duty (and Advanced Warfare and Blops 2 seemed to share some overlap, especially the aircraft carrier mission). It's not the future stuff, because Sledgehammer is doing that now. Would Treyarch have been better off returning to World War II?
Perhaps. WWII games tired themselves out last generation, with Treyarch's own World at War being the last true big one. But, arguably, people are nearly as bored with contemporary/future shooting as they were with fighting it out on France's beaches. Granted, you'll have to lose the exo-suits, unless you wanted mecha-Hitler, and I'm not sure if that flies this days. But if a change is as good as a rest, then it was always an option.
We'll have to see what happens at the reveal and beyond, of course, to find out what Treyarch has planned for Blops 3. The studio has proven itself more than capable in the past: the original Blops is my favourite of any of the Call of Duty games, and Wager Matches were an excellent addition that should have been built upon more than they were.
Zombies, too, will pull in the fans no matter what. And, frankly, CoD still has a lot to offer. People who are down on it just because it's a) CoD and b) popular can get into the ground, or go back to playing Arma 3 or Battlefield or chess or whatever. It has its problems, of course: with the community, with balancing, with secret shots that kill you around corners. All that nonsense. Most multiplayer games do. That doesn't dampen the core game's greatness, but two secret mech games in one franchise may be one too many.
