It's Sledgehammer Games' turn to push out a Call of Duty this year, and a cryptic New Year's tweet has many believing that this latest game will be set in the 20th century. The tweet contains the following message, along with an elaborate GIF showing an old-fashioned counter whirring away against a clockwork background. "It's officially 2017!" reads the message. "Some call it the zodiac year of the Hammer. Have a safe and fun New Year's, everyone!"

By itself, that could just be an overproduced New Year's Day celebration, but an earlier tweet seems quite hinty as well. This message by Sledgehammer co-founder and studio head Michael Condrey features an image of an iconic 20th century pistol, the M1911.

OK, so that's not a lot to go on, but given that Battlefield recently veered back in time with its World War 1-set Battlefield 1, a similar move by COD doesn't seem terribly out of place. Could Call of Duty be heading to WW1, WW2, or potentially Vietnam for its 2017 installment? (Rumours appeared of the latter possibility last year.)

The most recent COD is set in the future, with spaceships and everything, and PC Gamer's Tyler Wilde didn't like it very much. Hopefully Call of Duty 2017 will improve on the formula somewhat.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Activision's Call of Duty franchise, despite being split into two relatively distinct branches the future and the past is very deeply rooted on a familiar premise: Guys with guns shooting at other guys with guns. But as GamesRadar reports, there was a time when Activision toyed with bolder visions for its famous military FPS, including a Call of Duty game set in ancient Rome.

Call of Duty: Roman Wars was prototyped in the Unreal Engine by Vicarious Visions, a studio that has spent the past half-decade working primarily on Skylanders, after Activision put out a call for pitches for new Call of Duty games. It featured a third-person view similar to Gears of Wars, although there were first-person segments as well. Players would have stepped into the boots of front-line Roman soldiers, as well as officers and even Julius Caesar himself, while fighting on horseback, from atop siege towers, and even while riding a war elephant.

Alas, it was not to be. Activision liked the idea but got iffy on giving it the Call of Duty brand, ironically because it was concerned about oversaturating the market. That, for the eagle-eyed among you who noticed them, is why those Ubisoft flags are flying in the video: The gameplay scene in the video was taken from a build that was repurposed and pitched to Ubisoft, as just Roman Wars, after Activision turned it down.

Update: here's the trailer in good-o-vision, on the official COD YouTube account. It reveals that if you pre-order the 'Legacy Edition' of Infinite Warfare, you'll get that recently revealed COD4: Modern Warfare remaster bundled with it.

Well, here it is. A reveal trailer for the teased Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, now on Hulu, and in a million potatocam YouTube videos, one of which I'll embed below. One suspects this trailer has arrived slightly ahead of Activision's orchestrated marketing schedule, given that the official COD Twitter account hasn't yet posted anything about it, and hurrah for that.

As you can see, COD:IF will be out November 4, and will feature a big battle where an armoured vehicle thingy rolls down some stairs. Also, you'll be able to blast off into space! Fancy that. I should probably write more, but I wanted to post this posthaste, in case it suddenly disappears from the interwebs.

Man, this YouTuber Activision has hired to promote its newest Call of Duty has kind of gone off the rails, hasn't he? I don't want to tell him how to do his job, but promising to rip us from the history books , blot out our skies , and bury us in darkness seems like a risky tactic. He doesn't even end the video with the traditional please like and subscribe .

What's that you say? Oh, he's the villain in the next Call of Duty? That explains his villainy appearance and his incredibly boring speech, then. While this first teaser for the next COD almost certainly titled COD: Infinite Warfare stops short of screaming hey, this what the next Call of Duty is all about , we can glean one salient bit of information: Mr. Villain up there is the leader of something called the Settlement Defense Front.

Which settlement are they defending, and why are they so upfront about it? I cannot say. But I do know that Infinite Warfare/the next COD is also being teased in Black Ops 3's Nuketown map, via the surprise appearance, among other things, of a futuristic airship.

Reports from March have it that Infinite Warfare takes place in the far-future, in a full on sci-fi setting.

From its origins as a modest World War II-based shooter, Call of Duty has gradually reached for the stars. Ghosts was set in the near future, while Advanced Warfare and last year's Black Ops 3 opted for a more far-reaching future setting. According to reports last month, the annualised shooter will likely be set in space this year.

Now, according to an image posted on Reddit which depicts a prematurely posted promotion on the PS4 dashboard, the name of this year's Infinity Ward-developed instalment has been revealed. That name is Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

It's a rumour at this stage: the listing was reportedly removed soon after appearing, and for all we know it's a mock-up – I wasn't able to recreate it on the office PS4. Still, it seems like a fairly plausible name, and if it isn't this year's new instalment, could it possibly be a remaster of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare games? That seems less plausible.

According to reports in March, this year's instalment will take place in a "full on sci-fi" setting in the "very far future". There's no lack of shooters based in those environments nowadays but, the Call of Duty series has recently made a habit of inheriting zeitgeist-y elements from other shooters (namely, Titanfall). Whatever the case we'll likely find out soon: April has traditionally been the month Activision starts talking about a new Call of Duty.

War never changes, they say, unless of course you move the battlefield 100 kilometers above sea level. If the latest rumours surrounding the next Call of Duty instalment are to be believed, space marks the latest frontier upon which the shooty-bang simulator will be deployed. 

Industry source Shinobi first made the claim via NeoGaf over the weekend, suggesting developers Infinity Ward are looking at space combat in a "full on sci-fi" setting in the "very far future". While previous CoD series entries have explored futuristic themes in the past - Black Ops 3 and Advanced Warfare, especially - this step would see the franchise (boldly) go in a whole new direction. EA's Battlefield 5 is also expected to release later this year and is rumoured to be set during the first World War, making this news, if true, all the more interesting.   

Earlier this month, publisher Activision announced that it won't have an area on this year's E3 show floor, however will be showcasing the next CoD via Sony's PlayStation booth. Best watch this space until then.  

Thanks, Eurogamer.