What? No Recent Warfare?

There's been a lack of news regarding the Activision/former Infinity Ward employees lawsuit, but recently there have been some developments that might be hinting on the future of the Call of Duty franchise as far as Activision is concerned.

Part of the lawsuit involves contention over the Modern Warfare name, what I consider an important part of moving forward if either party continues with shooter games. Recently though, Activision has registered domain names for possible titles Future Warfare, Space Warfare, Secret Warfare, and Advanced Warfare. Could this be a sign of their intentions or possibly branching off from the franchise? Shooters are a dime a dozen these days and with Activision having projects underway with Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software, and a dismantled but functioning Infinity Ward, it makes me wonder if the Call of Duty title will become the new Guitar Hero, slapped on any piece of shooter shovelware that's pushed out the door.

When the dispute over the Modern Warfare license first broke, the first thing I thought of was the implications if Activision were to lose it. With Call of Duty: World at War's zombie DLC being received fairly well, it's evident Activision could take the franchise into alternative history styles like Wolfenstein or Freedom Fighters, a personal favorite from the PS2. With Future Warfare and Space Warfare, it seems they may be shedding their realistic base and going more into the direction of Halo and other sci-fi shooters, which is interesting considering their new partnership with Bungie. When it comes to space warfare though, a certain Lombax already has that market cornered in my heart.

The titles of Secret Warfare and Advanced Warfare lend themselves to a more traditional interpretation though. Secret Warfare would fit in with the announced Call of Duty: Black Ops, focusing more on a stealth style of gameplay. Advanced Warfare might as well be Recent Warfare. There's tons of interpretations that could be taken from the title, whether it be expanding on strategy and supply drops to a not-quite-future style.

The move into spin-offs for the Call of Duty franchise may be a way for Activision to mitigate damage done to the development cycle. While litigation is pending, it would be unwise to release a Modern Warfare 3 unless they feel comfortable paying out royalty checks. However, if Activision fails to release a new title annually, the fickle minds of the shooter masses will easily forget it. It didn't take long for the bugs of Modern Warfare 2 to send gamers over to Battlefield once it was released. If the new titles end up being garbage software to fill a time table though, it will have seriously damaging effects on the brand of Call of Duty. It's taken a while for the stigma of being a WWII shooter to wear off and right now they run the risk of running the IP into the ground.