Treyarch Confirmed For 2015’s ‘Call Of Duty’, Activision Says Future Is Bright For ‘Black Ops’ Dev

Now that the Call of Duty franchise added Sledgehammer Games as the third main developer in the yearly franchise, each new game in the series is developed on a three-year cycle instead of two. Activision confirmed Thursday during a financial earnings call that Treyarch, the studio behind Black Ops and Black Ops 2, will get its first shot at the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One this year.

Sledgehammer’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare only just received it first DLC pack, Havoc, recently. Investor calls require some form of looking ahead to the future, however, which led Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg to drop this bit of information in a statement.

“While we’re not yet ready to discuss it fully today, we’re excited to announce that it will be made by the team at Treyarch, whose last 2 games, Black Ops and Black Ops II, remain the biggest selling titles in franchise history,” the executive said during the call (via Seeking Alpha).

“This fall’s game will be Treyarch’s first on the 3-year development cycle, it will be loaded with innovation and we’re excited to share more details with our community soon.”

Treyarch themselves confirmed the announcement on Twitter following the earnings call.

COD in 2015 confirmed. We look forward to carrying on the conversation…that is, if we haven’t started it already. #InDevelopment

— Treyarch Studios (@Treyarch) February 5, 2015

Now the question is what kind of innovation that Treyarch can bring to the table. There are rumors that the developer may revisit the World at War setting of World War II versus the Black Ops theme. The studio is responsible for the popular Zombies mode in the Call of Duty franchise that got its own spin in Advanced Warfare. How will Treyarch follow-up Exo Zombies? Maybe we’ll get our first clue in May.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was the number one selling game of 2014, but was down year over year compared to Ghosts. That title saw a dip in sales, too, compared Black Ops II. Activision continues to attribute these declines in sales to the transition from the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

“2014 was the height of the console transition. So I think to compare it to years when we were selling — when Call of Duty was able to sell to a much larger and more stable installed base is not an apples-to-apples comparison,” Hirshberg said during a Q&A session on the earning call.

“Our 2015 guidance on Call of Duty‘s new release is flat year-over-year, but we still have a fairly conservative planning assumption,” he continued. “We have Treyarch developing the game. We’ll have a larger installed base of next-gen hardware to sell into, and we believe our Q4 new release can be one of our best games yet. So we think the future is bright.”

Are you looking forward to seeing what Treyarch can do with a Call of Duty game on the PS4 and Xbox One? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images via Call of Duty]