Raven perched on Call of Duty as well?

Maybe Activision isn't content with three studios working on Call of Duty - perhaps Raven Software is being deployed on the record-shattering brand as well.

That's what a new Raven Software job advert suggests: that the developer is "seeking a lead visual effects artist to drive the development of stunning visual effects for an established console-based, realistic, first-person military shooter".

Realistic? That doesn't sound like Wolfenstein or Singularity.

Military?

Established?

Console-based and first-person?

The description points squarely at Call of Duty.

This ties in with Activision's streamlined focus on seven "pillar" franchises: Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Blizzard's "New Title" - presumably the MMO codenamed "Titan", and Bungie's "New Title".

If Raven's new project isn't Call of Duty, the only other possible fit - and a long-shot - could be something to do with Bungie's game, which is presumably an FPS.

An altogether more believable explanation is that Raven Software is being put to work creating DLC for Treyarch's Black Ops or this autumn's inevitable Call of Duty title, although we're still in the dark as to what that will be.

Will it be, as analyst Michael Pachter forecast to Eurogamer, not an Infinity Ward game but the debut creation from Sledgehammer Games - the studio formed by Glenn Schofield and Michael Condrey, who once lead Visceral Games at EA and produced Dead Space?

Hope so.