Call of Duty: Ghosts is the Next Gen COD. Not Literally Ghosts

Today, Infinity Ward have officially announced Call of Duty: Ghosts, the next iteration in the COD franchise to appear cross-platform on current and next-gen hardware.

"Infinity Ward set the gold standard for first-person action for a generation, and they're going to do it again with Call of Duty: Ghosts," said Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc. "Ghosts delivers an all-new story, all-new characters, an all-new Call of Duty world, all powered by a next generation Call of Duty engine, which is a leap forward for the franchise. Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of Call of Duty worthy of the world's greatest fans."

As you can see from the announcement trailer below, Call of Duty: Ghosts won't literally be about ghosts which, as a Ghostbuster fan, is a huge disappointment for me. Imagine a first-person Ghostbuster game using next-gen hardware. It would be so beautiful.

"Everyone was expecting us to make Modern Warfare 4, which would have been the safe thing to do. But we're not resting on our laurels," said Mark Rubin, executive producer of developer Infinity Ward. "We saw the console transition as the perfect opportunity to start a new chapter for Call of Duty. So we're building a new sub-brand, a new engine, and a lot of new ideas and experiences for our players. We can't wait to share them with our community."

Of course, it's easy -and probably a little trendy- to disavow the need for another COD game right off the bat, but I'm going to defend this one. Call of Duty: Black Ops II did tried a lot of new things that I enjoyed. Player choice was added and handled very well in the single player game, Zombies Mode is now becoming more objective based, and BLOPS II also featured some surprise RTS and tactical elements. Sure, some of these probably could have used a little more development massaging, but the new directions were a breath of fresh air for a series that desperately needed something.

The full-ultra-spectacular-spectacular reveal of Ghosts will be happening during the Xbox Next-Gen press conference on May 21st, and the game itself will be released on November 5th. My own feeling is that we can also expect the next xbox on the same exact date. Seriously...how can this not be a launch title for the new hardware?

Next Xbox, November 5th 2013. I'm calling it now.