Until now, the
Call of Duty series has always set its backdrop during one of three eras: World War II, the 1960's and present day 'what if' scenarios. Perhaps it was the increasingly vocal voice of the gamer towards the cut and paste nature of the series, or perhaps Activision and Treyarch just wanted to go in a different direction this year. Whatever the case, Activision has teased a few details about this fall's upcoming addition to the series.
Firstly, the rumors appear true that the game will officially be titled
Black Ops 2, but the publisher promises an all-new direction for the series and the franchise as a whole. Picking up where the first game left off, Hudson and Mason return as main characters, but this time you'll play as Hudson primarily.
The game revolves around a top secret space program that will launch you and Mason into space to repel a Russian sabotage of US satellites. In your venture there, however, and this is where it gets weird, you'll discover an alien alliance, called the Pact, moving swiftly to eliminate you in a holy war. From there you'll have to team up with the Russians in a fight to save humanity with the enlisted help of Tribunes, supersoldiers who were created as a result of the brainwashing seen in
Black Ops. Activision's Senior VP of Sales Richard Astley had this to say of the upcoming game:
While hardcore gamers have surely loved the tense, on-rails setpieces of our usual settings year after year, this time we were really looking to move the bar. The next logical step, and Treyarch agreed, was to move the series outside of Earth's atmosphere and into space in an all-new, completely original story mode not seen before in any game this generation. After the success we had with the Rezurrection map pack and the Moon setting, we knew we should start working on a way to more permanently move the series to outer space. If this game is received well, we'll hopefully be looking at a new bi-yearly franchise for the next half decade.A few other interesting details were revealed:
- Tons of playable characters throughout the story offering multiple perspectives, like a guy with black gloves, a guy with space gloves, a guy with fingerless black gloves, and a black guy with gloves.
- New commitment to story sees Hudson fighting for humanity's existence as he becomes master and chief of the war effort.
- All-new alien and prototypical weapons based around the use of plasmids, and one in particular that will offer a vicious circular saw on the end of the barrel for close encounters with the alien threat.
- Revolutionary vehicle missions in story mode and the use of vehicles in multiplayer, which Astley called "an all-new approach to multiplayer games".
- Full integration of the ELITE program, now with three tiers of pricing to choose from: ELITE, ELITE Veteran, and ELITE Prestige.
As for the multiplayer portion of the game, Astley was pretty tight-lipped, but he did mention that they will be "redefining" zombie mode with the inclusion of two new types of grenades and re-skinning the zombies to look like the aliens.
Astley's final comments were clearly meant to tease fans of the series even further. "This game will not only dispel the chatter that
Call of Duty has gone stale, but also it will also offer an all-new gaming experience to longtime fans that they can only find with our beloved franchise."
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is due for release on November 13th worldwide. Look for the first DLC pack, titled "Exaggeration" on November 6th. For our previous coverage of all things
Call of Duty, check
here.