Activision Blizzard released its quarterly financial report last week. If you don’t care about financials, then one of the key pieces of data in the report was that a new Call of Duty game would be released this year.
That new game was described as a “new” and “innovative” entry into the long-running franchise.
Normally, using those two words wouldn’t be a big story. But when it comes to Call of Duty, “new” and “innovative” are words that we rarely ever see.

In Development by Infinity Ward

As part of the Activision Blizzard three year release cycle, this year’s Call of Duty was developed by Infinity Ward, which last released a Call of Duty game in 2013 with CoD: Ghosts. Ghosts was the first game we saw on Xbox One or PlayStation 4.
People make fun of Call of Duty a lot, but the company has some big shoes to fill with this year’s version: last year’s Black Ops 3, developed by Treyarch, was the bestselling game of 2015.

Could This Be the First Call of Duty Set in Space?

We have very few clues about the new Call of Duty game.
Naturally, many people expect that it could be a new Ghosts or Modern Warfare.
However, the one hint we do have about this game is that Infinity Ward posted a tweet last month talking about “reaching new heights”. That tweet was accompanied with a picture of an astronaut.

Happy 2016! Here's to reaching new heights! How did you celebrate? #NewYear #2016 pic.twitter.com/Sur75mByx0

— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) January 1, 2016

Obviously, based on that information, this year’s Call of Duty will be set in space.
Another clue is that there was a brief space section in Ghosts.
Of course, the original Modern Warfare also featured a brief space section – so who knows if any of this means anything.

Activision Misses Financial Targets

On the financial side of things, Activision reported that its quarterly and yearly sales were down last year, and the company’s adjusted revenue for the quarter was $2.12 billion, a drop from $2.21 billion from the same period in 2014 and also below its forecasted revenue of $2.15 billion.
Total annual revenue was $4.62 billion, which was also a drop from the $4.81 billion earned for the year 2014.
Activision blamed these missed forecasts on poorly-performing games like Skylanders Superchargers and Guitar Hero Live, both of which were blamed on greater competition in the toys-to-life genre as well as the casual audience’s gradual shift towards mobile devices.