Call of Duty 3 from Treyarch
Modern Warfare from IW?
Activision's added further credence to the suggestion that, while the next Call of Duty game will appear on consoles exclusively, series creator Infinity Ward will continue to produce games for the PC.
That's thanks to a pre-E3 announcement of Call of Duty 3 for next-generation consoles that identifies Treyarch as the game's developer.
"Through the eyes of four Allied soldiers, Call of Duty 3 brings players closer to the fury of combat as they fight through the Normandy Breakout, the harrowing offensive that liberated Paris and changed the fate of the world. Developed by Treyarch, Call of Duty 3 is the follow up to the #1 next-generation game and is scheduled for a 2006 release," Activision said in a statement.
The game's presumably on its way to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 primarily, though a Wii version isn't ruled out - with a Nintendo logo reportedly appearing on the end of a pre-E3 trailer.
All of which leaves Infinity Ward, currently maintaining the excellent PC/360 Call of Duty 2 with new map packs and mod support, free to create new games. Something which, given CoD's enormous success for Activision - it stomped all over Medal of Honour in the UK charts last year - seems assured.
And indeed all of this ties in with rumours earlier this year that Treyarch would be handling a World War II CoD game based on the Normandy Breakout while Infinity Ward worked on something else - at the time identified as "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare".