4. The Future Setting
It was a bold decision to move the setting into the near-future completely, especially with Black Ops 2 being released as a straight sequel, and it was also the right decision. Casting off the shackles of the past - at least partly - and the limits of history for a less explored avenue will hopefully be just the reinvigoration that Call of Duty needs and the fans deserve. Futuristic shooters are in no way a new thing, and there are easily as many sci-fi influenced FPS titles as there are historical ones, but there are very few that spring to mind - if any - that will take the fundamental spirit of Call of Duty and port it into a future setting. And as long as Treyarch retain the spirit of Call of Duty, and in particular the first Black Ops, they could achieve something close to innovation in a marketplace that long ago stopped expecting that sort of progression. The setting also offers the opportunity to get our hands on some serious new firepower too, which can't be bad for the arsenal purists, and it was clearly no mistake that Activision chose to launch their pre-release marketing campaign with a tease of the quadrotor drone that will likely be a big favourite among players (provided it both works and is used sparingly enough for impact). But of course, not only will we be able to explore the future, 80s flashback missions will pit you against new but familiar foes like General Noriega, grounding the futuristic elements in a continuation of the Cold War setting of Black Ops. That fidelity to the first game will be a major story-telling boost for Black Ops 2, and one that will presumably offer an explicit link to the Call of Duty heritage. It would be foolish to think that there won't be a future-war sub-franchise under the call of Call of Duty quite soon, and this approach at least offers a tangible link to the rest of the Call of Duty series before we get to that inevitable end point.