The video game equivalent of The Fast and the Furious franchise is set for another blockbuster release this holiday season. Call of Duty: Ghosts won’t hit retail shelves until November 5, but gamers hungry for a sneak peek at the military shooter can watch a live streaming broadcast this Sunday. It will reveal 30 minutes of never-before-seen gameplay, as well as developer interviews and other footage.
The gameplay preview comes two days ahead of E3, the Holy Grail of video game expos, which is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, June 11. Tens of thousands are expected to attend the conference which, among many others, will showcase the latest hardware and software from the “big three” console manufacturers: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
Just last month, video game publishing giant Activision announced that the tenth installment of their Call of Duty franchise would be coming out for the next-generation PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (as well as PC). It will most likely be the final Call of Duty for the aging PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Activision will also maintain their exclusivity deal with Microsoft, guaranteeing that downloadable content (DLC) arrives on the Xbox platform before all others.
Ghosts is being developed by Infinity Ward, the publishing studio responsible for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare – the first Call of Duty title to break free from a WWII setting – as well as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Activision and Infinity Ward had a very public falling out in 2010, when Activision fired Modern Warfare co-creators Jason West and Vince Zampella. The pair sued, and a settlement was reached last year.
Being based in Los Angeles has aided Infinity Ward with pulling major talent from Hollywood to contribute to their highly anticipated new shooter. Oscar Award-winner Stephen Gaghan, the screenwriter of both big-budget flicks Traffic and Syriana, has been tapped to write the script for Ghost’s single-player campaign. In an interview with Develop Magazine, Infinity Ward’s executive producer Mark Rubin said the following of Ghost’s animation team:
“We hired basically the top two CG guys in the whole of Hollywood. These are the guys that did the faces and bodies of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within. They did the Beowulf movie. They did the CG parts in The Animatrix. These guys are the kings of what they refer to as the ‘holy grail’ of CG, which is basically making lifelike looking characters in CG. And they work for us now.”
Rubin went on to say that the game’s surface technology – which provides the textured surfaces and curves in a game’s virtual world – would be overseen by SubD, a Pixar Animation subsidiary.
The most recent installment in the staggeringly lucrative franchise, 2012’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, had $1 billion in sales only 15 days after being released. Gamers logged 150 million hours of online play time in the same time period.
Call of Duty fans can watch the “All Access” streaming event on Sunday, June 9 at 11:00 am PST on Callofduty.com or via the Machinima app on their Xbox 360. Other web and broadcast outlets will be announced before the event.