[Update: Activision made nice with the publication over their Black Ops 2 scoop.]
Despite it being over 20 years since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall and dissolution of the Soviet Union, some speculate that the Cold War is still going on - Modern Warfare’s superterrorist Vladimir Makarov certainly demonstrated how such a scenario would play out.
While only those in tin-foil ushankas can answer that in the real world, more and more evidence is surfacing that the conspiracy and intrigue of the period is alive and well with Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
The game hasn’t officially been confirmed by Activision or Treyarch (the developer who’s up next in Call of Duty’s bi-annual rotation) but the pair also wouldn’t rule it out back in April. Just last month, Activision caused more rumblings when they registered a domain name for “Black Ops 2″ - even though they denied it had any relevance to development plans.
They might have a harder time combat diving around today’s new evidence, however, which came across resembling two akimbo smoking guns.
According to the French website Gameblog, the online retail giant Amazon added – but later subtracted – a posting on it’s French webpage for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. No public comment has been released from Activision HQ, but Gameblog later published a report stating that Activision France immediately contacted them over the phone and demanded them to “remove this post now!”
Check out the screen grab below for “confirmation”:
You might think the story ends there, but au contrare! Gameblog refused to tip their beret to the publishing behemoth, and so Activision retaliated by nixing their invites to a Transformers: Fall of Cybertron preview event and cancelling future advertising campaigns for the site. Effectively, Gameblog has been blacklisted.
On the other side of the Atlantic – Dallas, Texas, specifically – Nerve Software artist Hugo Beyer updated his public LinkedIn page to state that he’s currently working on none other than Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.
Activision police may have been more successful with Beyer; the LinkeIn page has now been deleted – but not before outlets like Joystiq got a hold of it. Reports suggest that Beyer has done work on triple-A titles like Beatles Rock Band, Anno 1404, Doom 4, and Aliens: Colonial Marines – so he’s no fake. When coupled with the fact that Nerve Software has been commissioned for work by Activision and Treyarch on titles like James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace and the original Call of Duty: Black Ops, the puzzle tends to finish itself.
Ranters, what do think Treyarch’s upcoming Call of Duty game will be? Will Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 continue the saga of Alex Mason and Ed Harris Jason Hudson? Do today’s dueling reports reek of an impending reveal from Activision?
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Follow me on Twitter @Brian_Sipple
Source: Gameblog [via Gamespot], Joystiq
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I don’t know, but I’m looking forward to it. Sometimes I wonder if they’ll ever do a futuristic COD.
I find the secrecy comical at best really. For the past 6 years they have been releasing record breaking COD games on a yearly basis, So what’s with the secrecy? Anybody who even questions the fact on whether they were going to make Black Ops 2 for 2012 clearly isn’t thinking straight or thinking at all. It’s the Best selling game….Ever and doesn’t require much change to appease fans so a sequel is logical and expected. Even from a business point of view, if a game/movie does great at sales then a sequel is sure to follow. All the secrecy is probably so Black Ops 2 doesn’t lose steam by the time launch comes. But any right thinking person knows that’s not gonna happen no matter how early it’s confirmed/announced. They should just start the Hype train now..
You’re right about the business fundamentals. I think it’s also a matter of where COD is creatively as well.
They’ve pretty much touched on every era save for pre-World War 2 (which I don’t see blending with Call of Duty gameplay at all) and the future. Combined with the money involved, I doubt they hesitate to expand on the Black Ops narrative *at least* one more time.
I completely agree. Everybody knows there’s going to be a sequel, and everybody should know that it’s going to be more of the same. There is almost ZERO innovation in CoD games, so all the secrecy and hype that surrounds CoD games really is comical and pointless. People think that the next CoD game is going to be some huge different thing, but it’s really just a repeat of the previous installment.
Activision you might as well tell people now, theres no sense in hiding after they’ve figured it out.
pass
I personally think it’ll be called COD iron wolf
does anyone besides the CoD fangirls care ? no b/c the franchise died after the chaotic mw2, which was half decent at best what with all the glitches, unbalanced guns, retarded killstreaks etc etc.
give the damn franchise a break for a few yrs and come up with something new, just like CoD4 did when it came out.
No one cares, you continously say this stuff in every COD article.
you obviously do otherwise you wouldn’t respond to my truthful words
You might think their truthful, but I don’t.
b/c you’re a fangirl of the franchise, if you played other games besides activisions repetitive and unrealistic bs you might see things differently, but until then you will remain a fangirl of a dying franchise that makes money for one man and one man only.
in the end you spend all that time and effort worthlessly ranking up and prestiging for nothing and they dont even listen to you people (‘community’) by patching things that SHOULD be patched, or including things that people have asked for/want/need (infected is only for p***ies that want to get uber streaks fast, no challenge or fun it in whatsoever).
This article should be titled, Joystiq discovers Black Ops 2 on french gaming site, GameSpot copies them, we copy GameSpot.
How creative and innovative of them.
But at least Black Ops was good, unlike MW2 and MW3.
@jwalka
Well I wouldn’t be suprised that your trying to be a BF fangirl.
i don’t play bf3 sh**bag, in fact i haven’t played a shooter since borderlands 2 which has more innovation and flare then any modern day shooter so suck on that b****
@jwalka
Your making yourself sound stupider and stupdier every time you reply back to me. Rules: NO PROFANITY
Excuse my I mistyped the second stupider.
lol @ fags bitching over cod. these arguments are old, give up no one cares about your opinion. cod “fangirls” wont listen to them.
Man not a word yet about zombies. Damn I just wish they just make their own zombie spin off.