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'Call of Duty' shake-up may see 'Black Ops 5' arrive in 2020
Activision's Call of Duty release schedule has been predictable for years -- the company has rotated between three studios, with Treyarch pumping out a Black Ops game every three years like clockwork. However, you might be in for a surprise in 2020. Kotaku sources claim Activision has changed from its original plan, where Raven and Sledgehammer would produce a single-player oriented game, in favor of Treyarch taking the lead with Black Ops 5. It would still be set in the Cold War as intended, but Raven and Sledgehammer would be relegated to support studios adding a story to Treyarch's (presumably multiplayer-heavy) title.
This is the new Zombies mode in 'Call of Duty: Black Ops 3'
It was known Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 would have a Zombies mode, but Treyarch hadn't revealed any more details beyond that -- up until now, at least. Today, as part of the San Diego Comic-Con festivities, the game developer introduced Shadows of Evil, a survival co-op experience that will be in Black Ops 3. What's more, Treyarch managed to cast some celebrities for the project, such as Jeff Goldblum (Independence Day, Jurassic Park), Heather Graham, Neal McDonough, Ron Perlman and Robert Picardo. The latest edition of the Call of Duty franchise is set to be released on November 6th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. But while you wait for it to come out, here's the Zombies Shadows of Evil trailer for your viewing pleasure.
Bylos's bunker life, the End of Days, and other Secret World news
Last we heard from Joel Bylos, creative director for The Secret World, he had locked himself away in his bunker and hunkered down for the end of the world. But don't think that means we've seen the last of him! In fact, Bylos continued his end of days video log from within that fortified haven. How well did he actually cope being sequestered away from the world with only Zoe, the two-dimensional bunker-mate? Watch and see for yourself in the final video after the break. In other news, Bylos also hosted a livestream party today in London's Crusades nightclub and answered questions from fans. We scooped up a few bits of news amid the din of revelers. First, the dev team is currently working on Black Ops, special dynamic PvP events that occur out in the world. In relation to that, Bylos revealed that there won't be multi-faction cabals because the team will be stepping up factional conflict; one way they will do this is by adding PvP XP. Outside of PvP, puzzle raids are also in the works for groups of players to solve together. Next, according to Bylos, folks are "guaranteed to see Venice before Tokyo, but it is not a new zone." In response to queries about player housing, Bylos answered that the team has to see where it falls on the list of priorities after things settle down with the new payment model. And last but not least, the special End of Days events will run through January 7th. So hop on in and enjoy a world overrun by Mayan zombies!
Call of Duty: Black Ops II limited editions unveiled, $180 'Care Package' includes aerial drone
Activision never disappoints when it comes to limited edition Call of Duty release bundles, and for the upcoming Black Ops II, it actually may have outdone itself. Besting the RC-XD from its predecessor, $180 will let you snag the Care Package edition for Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. This massive bundle is actually boxed as an in-gamed care package (aerial drop-off not included) that's loaded with a remote controlled MQ-27 Dragonfire quadrocopter drone (!) -- we really wish we'd picked up those Modern Warfare 2 night vision goggles now (not at all for full-fledged, after hours recon of our Aol office-mates...). Naturally, it also comes loaded with the requisite DLC goodies; namely, two extra maps (Nuketown Zombies and Nuketown 2025), exclusive weapon camo, a pair of Player Card backgrounds and copy of the soundtrack. Furthermore, PS3 owners will get a pair of dynamic themes, while those with 360s will receive an XBL Zombie avatar and Claw prop. Lastly, you'll also receive a couple more tangible items in the way of an art book and a duo of "Challenge" coins. Not looking to terrorize your local airspace? Shave off the $100 premium for the drone and case (not too shabby if the AR.Drone is expensive for your budget) and you'll be able to grab the Hardened edition packed with everything else. Last, and seemingly least in this case, Activision is putting out a Digital Deluxe for PC users -- similar to the Hardened variant, but with a download code for the aging World at War in place of the physical goodies and PSN / XBL content. Wallet already prepared for the future of secret warfare? You'll find details to place your own pre-order ahead of the November 13th launch at the source links below and trailer courtesy of Joystiq after the break. %Gallery-163580%
All MW3 and Black Ops maps half off for Independence Day
Activision is hosting a half-off sale on all Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops map packs, running July 3-9. A portion of the sales will benefit the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit organization that helps veterans with job placement and training.Take the burgers out of the freezer and get ready to snag the complete map collections right here.
Google Zeitgeist puts Battlefield 3 in top ten rising searches, Black Ops tops gaming chart
Google published its annual "Zeitgeist" report of the most popular searches and topics in 2011 this past week and for the first time ever, a game was included in the top ten fastest rising search terms of the year. Yes, as you've probably already guessed, it was "Gem Keeper." Wait, no, it was "Battlefield 3." EA's big shooter stirred up some interest, apparently, landing it right in between "Casey Anthony" and the "iPhone 5" in biggest gains in search popularity of the year. When it comes to video games in North America, however, there's another title on top of the heap: "Black Ops" was the most searched-for term in the category, with "Call of Duty" coming soon after that. "Battlefield 3" didn't even make the list in the category numbers, so its overall search volume was actually lower than the Activision series. Don't count "Halo Reach" or "Super Mario" out either -- they show up at the third and fourth spots on the list in the gaming category. And Google even shows us what 2011 searchers are most interested to play next year: "Diablo 3" and "Mass Effect 3" sit at the bottom of the list already for the most searched-for terms in gaming.
Watch Major League Gaming's Raleigh Championship Sunday, live on Joystiq!
Smell that? That gentle, wafting scent in the breeze? That unique blend of concession-stand popcorn, USB and pwn? It's a specific, enticing fragrance that can only mean one thing: It's time for Major League Gaming finals, and you can watch it all live on Joystiq! All day today, teams from around the globe will be competing for thousands of dollars in prizes across 4 games: Starcraft 2, Halo: Reach, Black Ops, and making its MLG debut, League of Legends. It's an exciting day for pro-gaming, so strap on your beer hat and big foam finger and head on through for the day's full schedule.
Digital Storm's slim Enix desktop takes Sandy Bridge to 4.7GHz
Overclocked, custom-built PCs are nothing new, and neither is 4.7GHz from the factory. But Digital Storm has managed to take one of Intel's newest Sandy Bridge chips to that height, and it's doing so in a case that's far sleeker than most of the towers out there. The all-new Enix relies on a Micro-ATX system board, vertical heat dissipation and a mobo that's rotating 90 degrees -- a move that's being made in order to "take advantage of heat's natural tendency to rise." Consumers can order one starting today, with the $1,132 base unit boasting a Core i3-2100, 4GB of DDR3-1600 memory, NVIDIA's 1GB GeForce GT 220, a 1TB hard drive and a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. The high-end model tops out at just north of two large, with each model offering a hot-swap bay and a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Eye candy is below, and the source link shouldn't be ventured to unless you're fairly immune to impulse buys. %Gallery-114981%
Xbox 360 mandatory update restores boot to disc, detains Call of Duty pirates for a tad
The story of the Trojan Horse must be a favorite among video game console manufacturers, because software updates these days often come with more than bargained for -- today, Microsoft issued a mandatory Xbox 360 update, reportedly for a single bugfix, but which seems to have coincidentally halted scores of pirates and hackers from playing Call of Duty: Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 on the console. Members of the Xbox-Scene forums noted the update was taking suspiciously long to download, discovered that backup copies of these games ceased to work, and presently believe that Microsoft included a patch for these two games to enable an anti-piracy feature that specifically targets burned copies. What does the mandatory update do for you if you're not part of the hacking scene? It merely enables the console to automatically boot a pre-inserted game when you power it on, a feature that was accidentally disabled in November. [Thanks, Brian]
Call of Duty: Black Ops PC multiplayer patched
We haven't spent much time with it ourselves, but everything we've heard from friends and other journalists points to the PC version of Call of Duty: Black Ops' multiplayer being -- in technical terms -- a poopie. Today, Activision pushed out some anti-poopie fixes via Steam, including: Friends fix for join in progress and Friends tab in server browser Performance improvement for dual and quad core systems We're hoping the patch will be enough to cure everyone's ills, but either way, we'd caution players to not fly off the handle. When you participate in a beta, these things happen. Until you actually pay for the product, you don't have much right to complain. ... Wait -- what?
NVIDIA promises 'fastest DX11 GPU on the planet' very, very soon (video)
Nobody will be too shocked to hear NVIDIA expects its next flagship GPU to be the fastest that's ever been, but few will have guessed it'd also be one of the company's coolest and quietest. In the first public teasing of its next-gen graphics card (which is almost certain to bear the GeForce GTX 580 name tag), NVIDIA has revealed a new vapor chamber cooling system, which reminds us of Shuttle's ICE CPU cooler -- basically, water sealed within the chamber gets boiled by the hot elements (a copper plate in NVIDIA's case), which forces it to transfer heat away to the bits that are being cooled by the fan, where it chills out and recycles itself back to the boiling plate. The end result, according to NVIDIA, is about seven decibels less vroom relative to the GTX 480, along with lower operational temperatures. Besides that, the company's Tom Petersen also showed off an impressive tessellation demo and the first public display of Call of Duty: Black Ops gameplay, which was powered by this as yet unannounced GPU. Skip past the break to see it all on video. [Thanks, Vygantas]
Black Ops controllers aren't stealthy enough to avoid pre-release detection
Another autumn is fast approaching, which to FPS gamers mean only one thing: time to prepare to heed the next Call of Duty. In a repeat of last year's controller bonanza, Mad Catz is producing a litany of licensed Black Ops peripherals -- for the Wii, Xbox 360, PS3 and PC -- and we've now got the first imagery of their appearance. The new gear hasn't been made official just yet, but what you see here should be a good representation of the final product. Above is the 360 controller, which will share a major new feature with its PS3 brother: precision aiming. It's a simple lowering of the analog sticks' sensitivity when you want to do some more precise work and will be toggled by the use of "combat" buttons on the controller's back. MSRPs are expected to land at just under $50 for the console pads and $100 for a rebadged Cyborg Rat PC mouse and accompanying 2GB USB dog tag. You'll find a video and more pictures after the break.
Call of Duty: Black Ops to feature dedicated PC servers
In a recent interview with UK gaming mag PC Zone, Treyarch head Mark Lamia announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops -- unlike the last Call of Duty game on PC -- will feature dedicated servers for PC players. "I think dedicated servers are excellent. I don't see any reason not to see them unless ... well, I just don't see any reason not to," Lamia responded when asked about Black Ops' PC iteration, reports CVG. Covering his bases (and likely not trying to insult Infinity Ward's reasoning behind not supporting dedicated servers), Lamia added, "We do work very hard to reconcile the desire to manipulate and modify those dedicated servers with offering them the persistent experience and benefits that the console system provides ... so people can run dedicated servers and also participate in the communal experience the console players get to have, given they're all on first-party servers." And with that, it would seem that Treyarch will give us a chance to officially leap through the air while raining an unlimited supply of explosives on the ground below us when the game arrives this November. Hooray?
Digital Storm tempts with 4.4GHz Black|OPS Assassin gaming desktop
Not down with piecing together a gaming rig for yourself, eh? We'll forgive you... this time. Thankfully for you, Digital Storm forgives eternally in situations such as this, with the pre-fab PC builder today cranking out one of its most beastly rigs to date. The Black | OPS Assassin is hailed as the planet's "most advanced vertically cooled PC," boasting an Intel Core i7-930 that's factory overclocked to 4.4GHz. Other specs include 6GB of DDR3 RAM, an EVGA X58 motherboard, 750 watt power supply, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and your choice of an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 (1.2GB), ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) or GeForce GTX 480 (1.5GB). Go on, wade over and start customizing -- that $2,387 base price won't sting too badly.
Call of Duty: Black Ops brings the Cold War to Wii Nov. 9
Trigger finger looking fat and out of shape, vegging out on the couch watching Golden Girls reruns? Well, it better shape up this fall, because even-year developer Treyarch's latest entry in the Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Black Ops, is coming to the Wii on November 9, Eurogamer reports. This will be Treyarch's fourth Call of Duty Wii title, after 2006's Call of Duty 3, 2008's Call of Duty: World at War, and 2009's Modern Warfare - Reflex, a Wii-ificiation of Infinity Ward's 2007 classic. The confirmation comes from an Activision rep who stated "Black Ops will be available on all four platforms, PS3, X360, PC and Wii, on 9th November" – pretty straightforward, eh? There wasn't any other news on the Wii version, so we contacted Activision directly which confirmed the Wii release but, sadly, couldn't offer much else in the way of details.
Call of Duty: Black Ops reveal trailer gets the GT Pop-Block treatment
Outside of a UK game retailer listing a handful of details about this November's Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: Black Ops, all we've been given so far in terms of solid information on the game is a trailer with a slurry of quick cuts and some muffled dialog. Thankfully, GT Pop-Block has taken apart said trailer piece by piece, highlighting several standout points. What we found most interesting was that, rather than an astronaut seen briefly near the end, it's actually an SR-71 pilot in a full pressure suit, just before heading into sub-orbit (Pop-Block believes this could be a recon mission). Additionally, as you might have already suspected, various elements in the trailer heavily suggest Vietnam and Cold War themes -- an intercontinental ballistic missile launch, possible Vietcong troops, scientists vacating an exploding Russian complex, and the presence of a UH-1A Huey helicopter (first used in 1962 during the Vietnam War). Oh, and hey, that dude you see above? Yeah, he's probably pretty important to the story. He also totally gets to fly a helicopter, which seems to be player-controlled. See for yourself after the break.
CyberPower, Digital Storm and Maingear add NVIDIA Fermi GPUs to flagship gaming PCs
Origin PC kicked things off on Friday by shoving NVIDIA's latest and greatest into its Genesis desktop, and now a few more in the custom PC game have upped the ante by offering a similarly delectable taste of Fermi. NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 470 and 480 have been all the rage over the weekend, and if those raucous benchmarks have you convinced that the time to buy is now, a trio of system builders are here vying for your attention. Digital Storm's Black|OPS rig can now be ordered with a GTX 480 (starts at $2,891), while CyberPower is giving prospective customers the ability to add the latest Fermi GPUs into a smattering of towers. Maingear's formidable SHIFT supercomputer is also seeing the update, but it's really asking for trouble with a triple GTX 480 configuration that demands a minimum investment of $6,199. In related news, ASUS, Zotac and a slew of other GPU makers are cranking out new boards based on the minty fresh core, so you shouldn't have a difficult time finding one if the rest of your rig is a-okay for now.
Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme Edition hits a slew of new gaming desktops
Intel's six-core, twelve-threaded Core i7-980X Extreme Edition has turned the hardcore gaming community on its head, and just about everyone is scrounging around in a (mostly futile) attempt to locate $999. For those in dire need of an entire system replacement, it seems that today's the day to start looking. Shortly after we heard that this 32nm Gulftown chip would be landing with Alienware and Origin PC rigs, a veritable plethora of other outfits have shown up to make similar announcements. Digital Storm has popped an overclocked (4.4GHz) version into its Black|OPS machine (which conveniently starts at $5,642, while CyberPower is now offering the silicon in its Black Mamba, Black Pearl and Gamer Xtreme 3D machines. Maingear's also sliding said CPU into its world-beating Shift "supercomputer," and anyone shopping a high-end Velocity Micro system will also see the option. We suspect most every other PC maker in existence will be following suit soon, so if your prefab PC builder hasn't yet jumped on the bandwagon, just hold tight. Real tight.
Digital Storm Black Ops gaming rig is exactly what you expect
Sure, there might not be too many surprises with a completely customizable gaming rig called "Black Ops" from high-end manufacturer Digital Storm, but that doesn't make it any less impressive. This latest rig naturally adds the latest Core i7 processors as options, along with ATI 5970 graphics, and Digital Storm's own Sub-Zero Liquid Cooling System, which promises to handle your overclocked processors and graphics cards with ease. You'll also get your choice of four different, equally intimidating-looking chassis, and a fairly generous three-year warranty (even on overclocked machines). Prices obviously vary quite a bit depending on the configuration, but the standard "Extreme" rig will set you back $3,102.
First qualifiers for EVE Alliance Tournament VII come to a close
In the gaming world it's been the Penny Arcade Expo and Dragon*Con that got most of the attention over the weekend, but EVE Online's annual PvP tournament kicked off on Saturday as well. EVE Alliance Tournament VII's first round of qualifiers saw 64 player alliances (guilds) go head-to-head, with only half of that number earning the right to compete in the finals after next weekend's second round of qualifier battles. If you didn't have the time to listen to the tournament in-game using EVE Voice or catch any of the internet radio broadcasts, CCP Games has video footage of all of the weekend's matches in HD on their YouTube page. Both the Day 1 and Day 2 qualifiers are available, and they provide the first looks at Tech III Strategic Cruisers and even Black Ops battleships being put to use in the Alliance Tournament. Stick with us after the jump for more on the first weekend of Alliance Tournament VII.
