Activision's been keeping its lips tightly sealed with regards to any information about what's going to be next for its famous shooter franchise Call of Duty.

Right now Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, and Raven Software are allegedly hard at work on their own Call of Duty, likely the highly expected Modern Warfare 3.

Anticipation for Modern Warfare 3, however, might have started to overshadow the huge success that Black Ops achieved. Perhaps what we should be more curious about knowing is what game it is Treyarch is going to be making next - with Black Ops busy crawling up the list of milestones towards becoming the best selling game of all time.

OXM UK has revealed that Black Ops 2 might not be out of the question. Treyarch remained adamant in December that its first course of action was to focus on supporting Black Ops after it had launched, but more than enough time has passed for them to be hard at work on their next game. A recent hiring spree revealed that the developer was looking for talent to work on its next game already.

Back in February Treyarch revealed that they would be interested in making a near-future Call of Duty game, but were a bit hesitant to suggest that any such game would for sure be made.

An article in OXM UK's most recent issue makes its own suggestion for Treyarch's next title, but much like a near-future Call of Duty game this one is just as loosely supported. When asked about the potential of a Black Ops 2, Treyarch Community Manager Josh Olin coyly replied:

"Your guess is as good as mine."

He then added some his about Black Ops' huge success.

"We're so happy with Black Ops - it was incredible. Everyone hoped it would have this kind of success. We all knew how well MW2 did [in 2009], breaking all entertainment records, so the fact that Black Ops broke through it for a second year in a row and reset that record was incredible. We're still really glad that we hit the ground with the DLC when we finished the game, because we knew we wanted to get it back out there."

This lack of denial may mean that Treyarch hasn't committed to a story yet, but with almost half a year having passed since Black Ops released - it's hard to imagine they haven't thought about it. In the past half-decade Activision has made sure to release a Call of Duty every year, alternating releases between Infinity Ward and Treyarch. If this trend continues, Treyarch's next game would release sometime in Fall 2012, most likely in November.

Olin recently praised DICE's Frostbite 2.0 game engine calling it, "visually stunning," and claiming that the Call of Duty game engine could be updated to accomplish the same things that DICE's proprietary software does. Treyarch is going to have to pull all the stops if it wants to create a product as visually impressive as the upcoming Battlefield 3.

Do you think that starting a Black Ops franchise is a good idea for Treyarch, or should they continue making self-contained titles in different time periods?

Black Ops and its first DLC "First Strike Map Pack" are available now for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

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Source: CVG