[HTML1]

There has been a great deal of speculation over the last few weeks that this year's Call of Duty release would be the third Black Ops installment of the franchise. A couple weeks ago, digital games research company SuperData let slip the next Call of Duty would, in fact, be Black Ops 3. Then earlier this week, developer Treyarch shared a Snapchat video that hinted at the game's release.

With the cat pretty much already out of the bag, Treyarch today released a new teaser trailer that confirms our suspicions. The next CoD will be Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

The above video provides plenty of evidence, including sound clips from the previous Black Ops games. It also provides a Matrix-style visual treat reminiscent of the Black Ops and Black Ops 2 game covers.

We're hardly surprised by this revelation about Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, though. According to Activision's three-year Call of Duty development cycle, we already knew it was Treyarch's turn to deliver a CoD game. And there's no reason the developer would step away from their hugely successful Black Ops series.

Based on the sound bites in the above video, we're confident the Black Ops 3 storyline will be a continuation from Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Both the previous games focused around Alex Mason and his son David. We're not sure what role those two will play in the game, but we have no doubt they'll be included somehow. Additionally, the random numbers and letters in the video hint at the dark, brainwashed nature of Alex Mason from the first Black Ops, and the revelations made to his son in Black Ops 2. We're excited to see how the story from Black Ops 3 plays out.

According to the video, Treyarch will be releasing additional information on April 26th. No word yet on what that information may be, but it definitely falls within the same timeline used to officially announce past Call of Duty games.

It will be interesting to see if Black Ops 3 comes to both last-gen and current-gen consoles, or just PS4 and Xbox One. This fall will mark two years since the new consoles launched, and even though both Sony and Microsoft committed to supporting their last-gen consoles for a while, the two platforms are potentially close to the end of their life cycles. Hopefully, they'll make the most of the current-gen consoles' power and give us a truly next-gen Call of Duty experience.

What do you think about Treyarch's teaser trailer? Are you excited for Black Ops 3? Let us know in the comments.