'Call of Duty' Goes to Space.

Call of Duty had reached a point where it became about as reliable now as Maddenwas in the mid 2000s—every year you were going to get roughly the same game, and every year it’d be massively popular but slightly less impressive than whatever came before it. And now, well, we’ve got Call of Duty in space.

That the far-and-away most successful video game franchise of the last few years would try a venue change isn’t totally unexpected—the space station hijacking scene from 2013’s Call of Duty: Ghosts was easily the most innovative the series had been in years—but we’ll see whether a series that has been known for its sort-of-realism can successfully pivot to full-on space sci fi.

he full reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare suggests that much of Earth is at war with something called the “Settlement Defense Front,” which seems to either be made up of rogue humans with space capabilities or humanesque cyborg aliens invading the planet (I’d bet on the former). At least part of the fighting will take place on Earth, but it’s looking like there’ll be extensive fighting in space, too, leading me to hope Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare might be something a bit more like Call of Duty: Starfox.

As is tradition, the game will drop in November and will probably be adored by the masses even if it does end up being more of a retread of previous games with a small venue change. The graphics look beautiful, but the trailer’s nu metal cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” is giving me some serious pause here.