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Activision admits players are fatigued with futuristic Call of Duty games

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg has acknowledged that Call of Duty stayed in the future for too long and needed to return to its roots. Call of Duty: WWII is out for consoles and PC on November 3.

The Call of Duty franchise had been moving further and further into the future over the last few years, with varying degrees of success. While 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare included some great innovations to mobility and a fun, straightforward story, the next few installments began to veer off the rails. After the poor public reception — and lower sales numbers — for Buy Now  in 2016, Activision knew it had to go back to its roots with Call of Duty: WWII.

Speaking to Game Informer, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that the company likely wouldn’t have released another futuristic shooter if it had anticipated fans’ reaction to it.

“First of all, there was a time not too long ago when everybody in the Call of Duty community was fatigued with modern [shooters] and was asking for innovation and asking for new experiences, and that’s what led us to start experimenting with taking the franchise into the future in the first place,” Hirshberg said. “I think with the benefit of hindsight, we can all agree we might have had one more future game than we needed.”

Hirshberg also said that the team at Sledgehammer originally wanted to begin work on an Advanced Warfare sequel, but it “felt natural” to task them with bringing the franchise back to its original World War II setting. He also seems less than confident about the prospects of an Advanced Warfare 2 actually seeing the light of day. The return to 1940s combat doesn’t sound like it will be a one-and-done deal, however. With World at War exploring the Pacific conflict and Black Ops even examining what happened after the war, Activision could give a newer, more modern spin on World War II without retreading ground. We’re still holding out for that Revolutionary War game, though.

Call of Duty: World War II focuses entirely on the fight against the Nazis, and its campaign includes Hollywood talent like Josh Duhamel, Ving Rhames, and David Tennant. The game will also include a competitive multiplayer mode, as well as a zombie mode with a renewed emphasis on horror. It’s out on November 3 for Buy Now , Buy Now , and Buy Now .

Remember when transparent gadgets were the coolest things you could own? Sony is bringing that late '90s aesthetic back with its new PS5 Prism Collection. The gorgeous lineup gives your DualSense controller and PS5 console a glossy, see-through makeover in three eye-catching colors.

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For years, Call of Duty’s campaign mode has used big, scripted set pieces to tell the overarching story amid all the adrenaline-pumping action. The 2023 Modern Warfare 3 tried to shake up the established formula by introducing a handful of short open combat missions, and I genuinely liked the idea, but the game's overall negative reception seeped into how those missions were received.

I feared the next iteration might abandon the idea because of the backlash, but I am glad it didn't. MW4’s “Stranded” mission uses the same approach, but instead of fragmenting it across the campaign, it puts it all in a single large-scale open-world mission.

Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.

Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.