Call of Duty rumours abound

By Kristan Reed Published 8 March, 2006

Two new titles on the way?

The Internet's at it again - this time with rumours that two new Call of Duty titles are currently in development for PC, PS2, PS3, Xbox and Xbox 360.

That's according to Joystiq.com, which claims to have word from "a reliable source" that the new titles will be released within just three months of each other.

According to Joystiq, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is being developed by Infinity Ward and will focus on the conflict in the Middle East. You'll fight for the US Army, US Marines and the good old SAS as you take on terrorists who've sworn their allegiance to a Middle Eastern dictator.

Missions will take place all over the globe - you'll be battling it out at sea (the North Atlantic, to be precise), trying to infiltrate terrorist cells in London, and fighting on the streets of Eastern Europe. You'll also get to visit the Middle East as you attempt to stop those pesky terrorists unleashing deadly chemical weapons.

Apparently you'll get to pilot an Army attack helicopter, which comes equipped with rocket powered grenades, before roping down alongside your Marine platoon into the thick of the battle. We're told to expect lots of squad combat and a wide variety of weapons, including silencers, tear gas, grenade launchers, mines, machine guns and flashbangs.

You'll be able to mash up all the environments good and proper, kicking down doors, destroying walls, blowing up bridges and so on. If things get tricky, you can order laser-sight air strikes to give you a hand.

There's no title or developer given for the second CoD title, but Joystiq reckons it's probably in development at Treyarch - the studio behind Big Red One - and will be based around the Normandy Breakout campaign of 1944. Canadian and Polish troops will join French resistance fighters in the battle for freedom, alongside US and UK forces, of course.

You'll be able to do parachute jumps and commando raids alongside the SAS, and drive tanks, jeeps and motorbikes, complete with sidecars. You can also drive a tank while a friend operates the gun in co-op mode.

The game is said to use a new physics engine and battle chatter system that's sensitive to the context you're in. Plus, you'll be able to use button combos for disarming traps, avoiding artillery and sprinting for cover.

All rather exciting, then - but is any of it true? An Activision spokesperson declined to say, simply telling Eurogamer: "We do not comment on matters of rumour or speculation." Looks like we'll just have to wait and see what turns up at E3 then...

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kangarootoo #1 6 years ago

    Wish they weren't doing a modern middle eastern setting. Like people aren't misinformed enough already.

    Played the XB360 demo of CoD2 the othger day. Thought it was pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking, but very hectic, very polished and some nice little gameplay tweaks and additions (such as the grenade warning icon and climb-over function).

    It might have ended up on my shopping list, had I not been planning to devote a portion of my life to Oblivion when it hits our shores (my first software pre-order ever incidentally).
    Edited by 1 at 08/03/06 @ 15:28

  • dbeamish #2 6 years ago

    be nice if they fixed the current title first FFS!!!!

  • Furbs #3 6 years ago

    Cor! This'll be close to the bone! At least in BF2 theres no real story line there (other than a very basic premise which doesnt mention real MidEast countries), its just people shooting each other.

    Given CoD's realism, I cant see them making up countries. Still, I'd buy it, a CoD game with a BF2 setting and modern weaponary would be pretty cool.

  • reality_cheque #4 6 years ago

    French resistance

    You mean we can hide in barns and refuse to sell bread to germans? :D

    *can't believe nobody else has made a joke about the French yet*

  • Mho7276501 #5 6 years ago

    i actually did a survey on these two games for them last week. I was dead against the modern combat one but the new ww2 game has some good new features. Although it was suposed to be confidential!!!

  • Dizzy #6 6 years ago

    >*can't believe nobody else has made a joke about the French yet*

    Maybe because a lot of real people died refusing to "sell bread" to Germans during WW2?

  • Furbs #7 6 years ago

    Blimey, someones sensitive.

  • dbeamish #8 6 years ago

    heres some French war humour:


    AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "run" to "hide." The only two higher levels in France are "surrender" and "collaborate." The increased alert was precipitated by the recent fire which destroyed the French white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

  • Furbs #9 6 years ago

    The "I feel lucky" link for "Famous French Military Victories" on google is still the best :)

  • kangarootoo #10 6 years ago

    @Furbs

    "Blimey, someones sensitive"

    Did that really need a "Blimey" puttting at the front. is it that surprising that some people find 80s Jim Davidson style war jokes a bit shit.

    I'm not sure what the average age on here is, but sometimes I think if I guessed I would be out by about -10 years.

  • Freek #11 6 years ago

    "focus on the conflict in the Middle East"

    Hmm WW2 has been done to death, what's still fresh and original??

    OH I know, deserts and terrrorism, we haven't seen any of those games, nobody is making those. How weird. Tell ya what, why don't we do one, it'll be revoltuionairy! Something gamers haven't seen before a million times.

  • reality_cheque #12 6 years ago

    @Dizzy: I'm English, it's my job to make jokes about the French surrendering. And, you know, IT'S A FRICKIN' JOKE. (A joke that wouldn't need to have been made if the WWII era french politicians weren't cheese eating surrender monkeys*... they weren't conquered, they surrendered barely a year into the war, I've been reading up on this too, apparently the military were happy to fight but were told to stand down).

    I've got no beef about the French now, as they've done good in refusing to help Dubya get revenge for his daddy - I kinda wish our politicians in the UK had a little more balls.

    @dbeamish: Nice :D

  • Furbs #13 6 years ago

    Added to which of course, the English perception of the French as cowards predates WW2, going right back to Agincourt and is purely a joking stereotype that noone can really take seriously.

  • reality_cheque #14 6 years ago

    @Freek: "Something gamers haven't seen before a million times."

    Something we've only seen 1000 times before is better than something we've seen a million times before. Not as good as something we've never seen before, but I'll take what I can get!

    Saying that, I can't think of many wars since the start of the 20th century that haven't been done to death... but I hope we don't have any more to pick from any time soon :(

  • reality_cheque #15 6 years ago

    such as the grenade warning icon

    IMO one of the most useful innovations in a FPS since the crosshair.

  • kangarootoo #16 6 years ago

    Cue comments about it not being realistic :)

  • Teeth #17 6 years ago

    Jeebz, rootoo... chill out, dude!

  • Dizzy #18 6 years ago

    "@Dizzy: I'm English, it's my job to make jokes about the French surrendering. And, you know, IT'S A FRICKIN' JOKE"

    I know but it is getting old....

    It is so ridiculous that if you play online with some (read most) Americans and they hear one word of French they all quit. Bunch of US fags ;)

    BTW I am not French ;)

  • Ghetto-lapin #19 6 years ago

    Eh, I'm French, and I AM a bit sensitive about this. Not that I'd take great pride if we were a potent military force, we aren't, so what.

    No, it's because this kind of joke is always used by war supporters in the US and UK.
    See, the French are against starting a war, they're all cowards...

    Plus, saying the French are all cowards is like saying all British are behind Bush, you need to distinguish a people and its government at a different time in history.

  • Dirtie #20 6 years ago

    No Revolution version :( The one console that has a superior control system.

  • kangarootoo #21 6 years ago

    @Teeth

    Hehe, didn't you see the :) I put at the end. Maybe it should have been ;)

  • Teeth #22 6 years ago

    Aha, no I referred to the comments further up. Never mind, it's not important :) See that shit Mark Norman posted up? What a cocksore!

  • spillz #23 6 years ago

    what is the strange obsession with post WW2 or some bleak future for FPS games?

    I would love to see some of these big boys use an FPS/TPS engine for WW1, the US civil war, conquering the americas (slaughtering incans on horseback as a spanish conquistador anyone), medieval england, ancient rome ETC ETC ETC

    maybe you'd need to cut to a 3rd person to handle melee weapons, but it seems like a minor problem relative to the goldmine of interesting stories and scenarios.

  • Talha #24 6 years ago

    'Modern Warfare" - as in 'Playing Catch Up to Modern Combat', eh? Somehow, with the stellar CoD2 under their belt, it doesn't befit IW to play second fiddle. And in case no one has noticed, BF is an entirely different beast.

    Not a positive turn of events, IMHO.

  • matrim83 #25 6 years ago

    Hmmm I loved all the previous ones and unless they screw up royally I'll buy the new ones whenver they come out.

    I dont get the whole trying something fresh and new. Why fix something that isnt broke. Look where that got the PoP and DX series. Same for Commandos (that demo wasn't a commandos game, it just wasn't).

    Most of my favourate games are franchises that only take what they had before and keep tweaking and adding little somethings.

    Zelda.
    Splinter cell.
    GTA.

    Edited by 1 at 09/03/06 @ 10:19

  • Talha #26 6 years ago

    @matrim83 : All true, although sometimes when a genre is positively INFESTED with a huge number of above- and below-average games, all largely similar separated only by production values, sometimes it does become necessary to innovate.

    Although I agree about Commandos. That game was NOT a shooter, and cannot succeed as one. More of a cop-out, IMHO - they should have stuck with the original formula and made it more accessible to humans.

  • matrim83 #27 6 years ago

    @Talha Fair point I suppose. With everyone jumping on a successfull games band wagon the area does becomes crowded (Godfather and GTA anyone?).


  • reality_cheque #28 6 years ago

    No, it's because this kind of joke is always used by war supporters in the US and UK.

    Not true at all - I'm very antiwar, especially when it comes to what is effectively not minding our own bloody business.

    I make these jokes because I find it funny. I tell all jokes I find funny to other people, and if they get offended then it's because they're sensitive to the subject. I have black friends I tell black jokes to, my best mate is Irish and we're always having a laugh taking the piss out of each other with Irish/Essex boy jokes, and the dude sitting next to me is Indian and I tell short jokes to short people. None of them ever get offended, because it's a joke.

    And at the end of the day, if you don't like it, there's an ignore button. I use it to rid myself of stupid people, so why not use it to block out my ramblings if you don't like them? :)

  • Mashum #29 6 years ago

    As someone who sometimes enjoys playing games simulating the carnage of WWII (still in living memory for some) I'm in no position to take the moral highground regarding jokes about occupied France.

  • miiiguel #30 6 years ago

    Don't really got much deep in French Resistance role on WWII, but I guess it was much more important then "not selling bread to fascists", I mean I've never, ever heard a bad thing concerning these people (appart from today's jokes, but that's hardly history), so my guess is that they're going (they are) forever in the books of history considered heroes, and that's is a very difficult "label" to achieve if not completly true.
    I like France, I was overwhelmed when I did a research on the French Revolution, so flame on...
    Edited by 1 at 10/03/06 @ 14:14