It's Activision Blizzard's turn to submit their quarterly earnings report to their shareholders - and the words speak volume when it comes to the future of the Call of Duty franchise.
Still sticking to their one-per-year format after all this time, the company drafted in a third studio - Sledgehammer Games - to aid in the rapid development of the series so that each of the groups working on a game had more time to spare.
The deal enabled Call of Duty: Black Ops III to bring re-engage the audience who saw the original new titles of the sub-series to be stronger than than the path of the 'Warfare' road with fans creating record add-on revenues without map packs - even after selling through more Season Passes. With the franchise still cementing itself as the most successful video game franchise of the last 20 years, Activision understands its time to mix things up a bit.
But why? Well, despite being the #1 franchise for the last 8 years, its newest entry - Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - hasn't performed quite to the standards or expectations set by previous entries. Understanding that the setting "didn't resonate with the fans" the group makes special mention of their plans going forward with the earnings report saying "2017 title will take Call of Duty back its roots"
Fuelling the fire of a return to a World War II setting, Sledgehammer Games - the ones behind this year's yet un-detailed entry - tweeted out following the report to say "It's out biggest achievement as game maker". Thus, we begun our countdown. Read the full report for yourself here. Blizzard did good.
