In a Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare spacesuit you can hear everyone scream
Something to shout about.
In space no-one can hear you scream - unless you're in a Call of Duty spacesuit, that is.
The next Call of Duty game, Infinite Warfare, takes the first-person shooter series into the future and up into space, where soldiers fight in zero gravity on the hulls of huge spaceships.
In taking Call of Duty into space, developer Infinity Ward has run into the challenge of creating a fun game that maintains some semblance of realism. Take grenades, for example. In zero gravity, they're not much use. So, Infinite Warfare created the seeker grenade, which zooms towards your target and blows up.
Then there's the new grappling hook, which lets players get around zero gravity space quickly. You can use it to zip to a location, or to grab an enemy and pull them towards you.
It's all pretty sci-fi, but it sort of makes sense in a fun kind of way. But where Infinity Ward has perhaps gone over the edge is with how it deals with the issue of sound in space.
Now, perceived wisdom dictates that space is a vacuum, and so if you actually had a war in space you wouldn't hear a thing.
But as we see from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare gameplay footage, you can hear everything in space. You can hear the pew pew of gunfire, soldiers gasp for air and the boom of explosions.
So, what's the explanation for this mad science?
In an interview with the PlayStation Blog, Infinity Ward senior art director Brian Horton said it was all about photons, the fundamental particle of light.
"So we did some research to see if we could simulate sound in space, because in military application the absence of sound would actually be very detrimental," Horton said.
"You need that feedback - explosions, bullets whizzing by you - to know how to react. And it matters as a player too.
"In the game, there's a way your suit can simulate those sounds and impacts through photons so that you have a tactical awareness of your environment.
"We've dampened the sound a little, but it's still there to make sure the player has a good time. This is actually not science fiction either - it's actually very plausible."
So there you have it. It's basically quantum mechanics, aka magic, that makes sound in space possible in the Call of Duty universe. Quantum mechanics and a dash of let's be honest here a Call of Duty game that didn't sound like a big old war wouldn't do at all, would it?
Horton himself admits Infinity Ward has had to take a creative license approach to the science of the new Call of Duty, which is fair enough, really. This is Call of Duty, after all, not ArmA.
"If you get too wrapped up in what is absolutely, scientifically correct, you nerf some of the core principles of what makes a great Call of Duty game," he said.
"You have to stretch and squash and work with the facts to get what you really want from the experience. So, we do take some licences with the science - this is a mass-market product after all, like an action movie - but we really want to make sure we're not going into laser beams and aliens."