This year’s incarnation of Activision’s license to print money won’t be straying far away from the new status quo set by last year’s Modern Warfare.

According to the industry analysts who looked at every platform that games had been released on in the last decade (Even Ouya, probably), Activision’s blockbuster series dominated the charts and claimed seven of the top ten spots overall.

While this year’s incarnation see’s Infinite Warfare’s Infinity Ward (try saying that five times fast without tying your tongue in a Gordian knot) step up to the plate for a rumoured new Modern Warfare 4, next year’s chapter in the franchise will see Sledgehammer back in action. Or maybe not.

Activision and developer Treyarch have been unusually quiet about Blackout, the new Battle Royale mode that’s coming to Call of Duty in Black Ops 4. Beyond admitting that it exists, and that it’ll stitch together moments and maps from your favourote Black Ops experiences on a single, contiguous map, there’s been very little information – particularly when it comes to player counts. We even tried to goad information out of Treyarch at E3, but they refused to speak in absolutes.

Call of Duty Black Ops IIII may be ditching single-player this year in favour of a more tightened-up multiplayer, zombies and battle royale experience, but at least one traditional component is going to remain inside of Treyarch’s signature series: Nuketown!

So I’ve just sat down in the media room at the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 reveal event. Oh man, what a day today has been. I don’t think there has been this much adrenaline, nervousness and excitement packed into such a short amount of time ever before in my life.

In an industry that is constantly in flux, constantly changing, Call of Duty has managed to cement itself as an annual favourite. It’s Dinner For One with guns, a traditional buffet of action that shows no signs of slowing down. Over the years, everyone knew exactly what to expect from Activision’s money-making franchise: A weekend of story, sixty frames of action at any given time and plenty of multiplayer to keep your thumbs busy. This year, things are different.

So, today is a big day.  I’m leaving South Africa to attend the reveal event for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4.  This is a big deal. For so many more reasons than some of you may know. Failure to launch Before I get into it, let me start this off by introducing myself. My name is Nick Holden, also …