12 Gaming Predictions For The Rest Of 2017

9. Call Of Duty: WWII Is The Series' Best Game In Years

The Prediction: Sledgehammer Games' upcoming World War II-centric entry into the blockbuster FPS franchise will be its first effort to score 85+ on Metacritic across most platforms since 2011's Modern Warfare 3.

Why It Will Happen: It's clear that Sledgehammer has listened to complaints about the CoD series getting too silly for its own good, so WWII appears to be offering up a more down-to-Earth, streamlined experience free of jet-packs and regenerating health. This plus an abundance of new multiplayer features could very well bring the glory days back to the franchise.

Why It Might Not: It's going to take a tidal shift in the series' style and tone to really win critics back enthusiastically, because at this point in CoD's life, it feels like pretty much everything that can be done has been done, and so critics will just slap a 7.5 or 8/10 on their review and be done with it.

The fatigue with the series is totally understandable, but hopefully critics will be discerning enough to appreciate Sledgehammer's desire to get back to basics.