For the last few years, the "Call of Duty" series has been pushing its setting further and further into the future. This culminated with 2016's "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare," which saw players partake in a galactic level war as Earth and Mars battled for dominance. However, fans have started to offer some push back to the futuristic settings, and Activision is taking notice.
Traditional ideas
During a fourth quarter earnings call for 2016, Activision higher-ups revealed that 2017's "Call of Duty" will be moving away from the futuristic, space settings as they didn't seem to be resonating with fans.
Instead, Sledgehammer Games, the studio behind 2014's "Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare," will be taking their next entry in the series back to more traditional combat.
This decision to move the series away from these futuristic settings is born out of the lower sales for "Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare," despite being the top selling game for 2016 in the U.S. There seemed to be more excitement surrounding "Modern Warfare Remastered," which was packed in with deluxe versions of "Infinite Warfare" only as a way to try and drive sales. There was also the overwhelming positive reception and strong sales of "Battlefield 1," EA and DICE's major shooter for the fall that dropped players in World War I, which players seemed to gravitate to much more than outer space.
No rest for the called
Despite the seeming disappointment that "Infinite Warfare" was to Activision's upper-management, they don't show any signs of slowing down. This was reflected in Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg, who conveyed his excitement over the creative and commercial future of the series, with Activision sticking to their three year development plan, with a new "Call of Duty" being released every year between three developers.
Despite the disappointment in the sales numbers, "Infinite Warfare" was still a big financial hit, as mentioned, for Activision.
Perhaps, with this announcement, Activision hopes that the shift to more grounded, traditional combat settings will be the shot in the arm for the series. If the new game delivers and is able to speak to longtime fans in the way that "Modern Warfare" and the first "Black Ops" game did, those sales figures will surely improve.
