Charlie Intel—via callofduty.4players.de and N4G—reports that a PS3 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops II's Hardened Edition has broken cover several weeks early. It looks like the special edition of Activision's hotly-anticipated military FPS was legitimately purchased ahead of time in Slovakia.

Treyarch has made cool-looking stuff in the Call of Duty video games, including the introduction of the series' fan-favorite Zombie modes. You wouldn't know it, though, for how boring their offices looked. But, thanks to art collective IAm8Bit, visitors can now tell that these folks really know the undead.

The video above gives a look at how one hallway in Treyarch's Santa Monica offices got turned into a zombie attack zone. The game developers funneled their ideas of what the finished space would look like and IAm8Bit provided the elbow grease—and fake blood—to make the transformation happen. All it needs now are guns.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified will be out this November, Sony said today.

It will have four-on-four multiplayer, Team Deathmatch modes, and other Vita-exclusive content. Sony will also sell bundles that feature both the game and PlayStation Vita systems.

Here are more details from the PlayStation Blog:

Developed by the team at Nihilistic Software, Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified is what Call of Duty fans have been waiting for: the game they know and love, authentically translated to handheld. "One of Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified's compelling features is the fact that you can take the established gameplay everyone knows and loves and bring it to the PS Vita," says the game's producer at Activision, Neven Dravinski. That means you can look forward to familiar elements like Create-a-Class, Perks, Prestige Levels, and of course, dual analog stick controls.

Black Ops Declassified's single-player campaign offers covert missions that help bridge the story gap between the original Call of Duty: Black Ops and the soon to be released Call of Duty: Black Ops II, while the multiplayer offers mayhem for up to eight players over Wi-Fi connections. "We'll have a variety of game modes and maps, including some that are custom made for PS Vita and others that leverage fan favorites from the Black Ops series, but tailor made for PS Vita," explains Dravinski. Multiplayer game modes include 4v4 Team Deathmatch, Kill Confirmed, and Drop Zone, but Dravinski says there will be other modes as well.

The dev team is making sure that Declassified takes advantage of key PS Vita features, too. The game will use the touchscreen for melee attacks, and for chucking grenades at your foes, and will even let you share loadouts with your friends via Near technology.

Nihilistic are the developers of Resistance: Burning Skies, a Vita first-person shooter that, sadly, wasn't very good.

Earlier this year, a leaked promo for Black Ops Declassified revealed that it will be a new, Vita-exclusive story within the Call of Duty: Black Ops universe.

You already know that the antagonists in the next Call of Duty will be turning America's robot drone army against us. And Los Angeles gets blown the hell up. But who's got the cojones and brains to even to do such a thing? Watch the trailer and find out.

Who do you call when you want electro-tinged, industrial-inflected rock for a world gone wrong? Trent Reznor, of course. Along with groundbreaking work as a recording artist in the 1990s, Reznor's done film for both The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

And now, it's been reported in USA Today that the Oscar-winning composer and band frontman will be doing the theme music for Activision's next Call of Duty title:

"I have always looked to that franchise as the cutting edge of what seemingly unlimited budgets and full-on not cutting any corners can do in the current day and age."

The Black Ops II story envisions a new Cold War between the U.S. and China and an international villain plays them off each other. "There is a lot of reservation and angst and sense of loss and regret and anger bubbling under the surface," Reznor says. "So it didn't make sense to have a gung ho patriotic feeling kind of theme song. It has to feel weighty."

This isn't Reznor's first video game music work by a long shot. The singer also did music for Quake and was also working with Id Software on tracks and sound engineering for Doom 3 until he had to abandon the project.

Trent Reznor composes 'Call of Duty: Black Ops II' music [USA Today]

Proving once again that it pays to wait when it comes to the hottest PlayStation 3 games, today Sony is launching Ultimate Editions, a selection of hit PS3 titles bundled with all of their downloadable content for one low price. How much would you pay for complete editions of Red Dead Redemption, BioShock 2, or L.A. Noire?

They're like Game of the Year editions, only downloadable. Today through June 4, PlayStation 3 owners can hop onto the PlayStation Network and purchase more-or-less complete editions of some of the hottest older games on the console for 30 percent off what all the bits would have cost individually. For a DLC-heavy game like Motorstorm Apocalypse, scoring the whole shebang for $50.49 isn't too shabby.

Of course it's even better when you're a PlayStation Plus member. Then the bundles are 50 percent off, dropping that Call of Duty: Black Ops Ultimate Edition from $66.46 to $46.54. Maybe it's finally time I look into hooking up a year of PlayStation Plus.

Here's the full list of Ultimate Editions going up today.

• Red Dead Redemption with Legends and Killers, Liars and Cheats and Undead Nightmare — $27.99 ($19.59 for PlayStation Plus)
• InFAMOUS 2 Complete Edition — $33.99 ($23.79 for PlayStation Plus)
• BioShock 2 with Exclusive Character Pack, Minerva's Den, The Protector Trials, Rapture Metro and Sinclair Solutions — $27.99 ($19.59 for PlayStation Plus)
• MotorStorm Apocalypse — $50.49 ($35.34 for PlayStation Plus)
• Call of Duty: Black Ops with First Strike, Escalation, Annihilation and Rezurrection Packs — $66.49 ($46.54 for PlayStation Plus)
• L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition — $27.99 ($19.59 for PlayStation Plus)
• Mafia II with Betrayal of Jimmy, Greaser Pack, Jimmy's Vendetta, Joe's Adventure, Renegade Pack, Vegas Pack and Hero Pack — $20.99 ($14.69 for PlayStation Plus)
• Just Cause 2 Ultimate Edition - $20.99 ($14.69 for PlayStation Plus)
• Mortal Kombat with the Warrior Bundle and Klassic Skins Pack 1 — $34.99 ($24.49 for PlayStation Plus)

PSN Introduces Ultimate Editions [PlayStation Blog]

Activision puts out a new Call of Duty game every year. It's been that way for the last half-decade or so. Trouble is, this annualization give people a wide-open lane to complain about recycled engines and how the games all look the same.

Mark Lamia—head of Treyarch, the studio behind the Black Ops branch of COD—knows all of this and wants people to know that some the software powering the sequel won't be a complete overhaul of the tech used for 2010's Black Ops. In an interview with Activision blogger Dan Amrich, Lamia says:

Engines, each time they get touched, they change. The creators alter them; they don't modify what they don't need to, and then they alter what they need to. You can't make a competitive product if you're not upgrading that engine along the way.

So what specifically got touched? Graphics and lighting, it seems:

I think what people are asking for is for us to push. They want us to make a better-looking game; they want things. I don't think those are things people can't ask for. We asked ourselves that very same question - we wanted to advance the graphics. I think the questions are valid. The answer may not need to be an entirely new engine, but you might need to do an entire overhaul of your entire lighting system. The trick is, we're not willing to do that if we can't keep it running at 60 frames per second - but we did that this time. So this is the Black Ops II engine.

Mark Lamia discusses the Black Ops II engine
[One of Swords]

When we say "Dubstep" most people think of hard drops and grinding wubs. But there is a lot more to the genre than that.

When people think Call of Duty, they think of hard explosions and grinding machine guns. But… perhaps there's more to the genre than that?

YouTuber TomahawkTrix thinks so, anyway, with this surprisingly lovely dubstep remix of that first trailer for Black Ops II, featuring a tune from Blackmill Music.

Feels like all those other emotionally dissonant action-game trailers we've seen, only with kinda more interesting music.

So, how about that Black Ops II trailer? Pretty explosive stuff. Now that you know more about the game itself, I thought it might be fun to go through some image-grabs from the trailer, just to tell you what I'm seeing there and how it lines up with that I saw of the game last week.

Here's the cockpit of a VTOL, one of the vehicles in the game.

More VTOLs. See how they soar!

The end-result of a successful mission, this went down in-engine and was appropriately bombastic.

The name I assigned to this image is "Building Exploding." I leave it to you to determine why that is.

The name of THIS image is "Building Exploding 2." Really, this should have been the first one, since it's a better picture.

Here is a CLAW unmanned tank wrecking some shit.

Another, better shot of the CLAW. These will be controllable in the Strike Force game mode, and doubtless in the rest of the campaign as well.

Here's the protagonist hopping into the cockpit of a futuristic anti-aircraft gun.

Some VTOL dogfighting—not all of the VTOL segments are on rails.

The view from inside of one of the flying drones during a Strike Force mission.

This is how your character issues controls to drones in the single-player campaign. You don't assume direct control of them; rather, you issue waypoints and commands on the fly.

One of the unmanned drones that attacks LA. Oh, how our hubris has turned against us!

A great shot of some more drones. The evil-looking bastards.

Frank Woods, who tells the story of Black Ops II. Not looking so hot, Frank. I guess you're pretty old at this point.

Hey, it's a guy in a gas mask! Maybe it's Ghost's cousin or something.

So yes, horses. Look at the pretty horses. There will be horses in this game.

Also, soldiers.

Also, exploding terrorists.

Sometimes, the horses and the helicopters will meet.

Here's a shot of the drone attack on LA, which seems to be what kicks off the story.

Okay, now we're just into some glory-shots of LA being destroyed. Let's keep on moving...

...more LA destruction...

...and more, also a shot that sort of makes me want to play Vice City...

...Oh hey! It's Nelson. This is the guy that I have a fair hunch is played by Michael Rooker.

Here's Nelson looking at some serious wreckage. Man, look at all that wreckage.

An overhead shot of a tactical strike—unclear whether this is from the campaign (likely) or from Strike Force.

Soldiers. America. Why We Fight. Freedom. Oorah. Oscar Mike.

More or less the entire squad of a Strike Force operation—aerial drones, ground drones, and an armed squad of soldiers.

Frank Woods is scared! Don't go! Don't leave him!

...That's when the cobras come.

Last week, I headed down to visit with Treyarch in Santa Monica to get an extended look at Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Our visit was entirely hands-off, and consisted mostly of a series of in-game demos of missions from the single-player campaign, as well as a new open-ended single-player mode called "Strike Force." The in-game missions were mostly set during a drone attack of Los Angeles, but we caught a few glimpses of other sections, as well.

Rather than write a huge narrative preview, I thought I'd just cut right to the chase and list as many facts about the game as I could.

I almost hit Stephen's standing record of 50, but fell just short. Oh well! There's a reason he's the boss.

Here now, 48 facts about Call of Duty: Black Ops II. From single-player to Strike Force all the way to Multiplayer and Zombies. (Less info on those last two, unfortunately.) Buckle up. Let's start with...

The Story

• The game's story will jump between two timelines, with the primary one set in 2025. "Most" of the game will be set in 2025.
• It is a direct sequel to Black Ops.
• We will find out definitively what happened at the end of Black Ops—presumably, Mason didn't actually kill JFK, given that he's out in the field in Black Ops II. But who knows?
• The second timeline will be set in the late 80's near the end of the Cold War.
• The story will be narrated by Black Ops character Frank Woods, now an old man. Apparently he didn't die at the end of Black Ops after all.
• In the 80's timeline, players will take on the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason.
• In 2025, players will take on the role of David Mason, who is the son of Alex Mason. The father/son relationship will play a part in the story. Hello daddening of video games!
• In the game's fiction, there is a second Cold War happening between China and the US due to the scarcity of Rare Earth Elements used to make tech devices and military weapons.
• The story is based on a real-world possibility, as China (according to the folks at Treyarch) currently controls 95% of the rare earth elements in the world. Topical!
• Many of the real-world hooks are inspired by P.W. Singer's Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.
• A good deal of the 1980's action will take place during proxy wars in Central America. Tropical!

• 

  
  
• Game Director Dave Anthony hinted that we may find out more about "imaginary" Viktor Reznov. "He was essentially a figment of the player's imagination," Anthony said.

  "Or was he?" Studio Director Mark Lamia chimed in, playfully. "Will we find out more about that?" asked Anthony with a smirk.

  
  
• David Mason (the son)'s callsign is "Section." Which is kind of a cool callsign.
• The villain will be a man named Raul Menendez, who in 2025 is pitting the Chinese and US governments against each other by hacking into their drones and other robotic weapons.
• The 1980's missions will chronicle what started Menendez on setting his current-day plans in motion.
• The story is was written from the ground up by Dark Knight and Batman Begins co-writer David Goyer. Goyer joined the first Black Ops part of the way through. He wanted to "create a memorable villain" with Menendez.
• Menendez has hacked into the US's unmanned drones and unleashed an attack on Los Angeles. In the mission we saw, a fleet of drones were destroying buildings in downtown LA.

• 

  
  

• ---

• There will be at least one female soldier in the game, a pilot named Anderson. She laid quite a bit of waste during the entire LA mission.
• The president in 2025 is also a woman, and appeared in the LA mission.
• David Mason's sidekick is a soldier named Nelson who appears to be played by Michael Rooker of Mallrats and The Walking Dead fame.
• The game will be using full-body performance capture to place its actors in the game; the tech demo I saw demonstrated both male and female actors captured with the sort of clarity we've come to expect from games using full-performance capture. James Burns will be reprising his role as Frank Woods, of course.

• 

  
  

  ---

  The Gameplay

• From what I saw in several demo sections set in a burning, futuristic LA, drones are controllable in combat and will play a large part in the game. Players have a drone-controller on their wrist in the game, and can use it to assign targets and waypoints.
• There will be horses, and horseback-riding, during at least one sequence in the 1980's. They even went so far as to bring a horse into the motion capture studio.
• At one point in the demo, the player jumped into a futuristic anti-aircraft gun and shot down enemy drones.
• Vehicle segments will be back, including one piloting a futuristic VTOL airship. Part of the VTOL mission was mostly on-rails, but the second part involved free-flying and dogfighting with drones.
• The Black Ops II story will be branching—it will feature choices and variable outcomes. Wait, what? Yep.
• At one point, players had an option to either grab a sniper rifle and cover their squad, or rappel down to join up with them. Presumably that choice leads to a slightly different gameplay experience—this looks like one of the smaller of the choices offered in the game.
• A large part of the branching will be due to Strike Force, which is a brand-new game mode featuring tactical, open-ended gameplay in sandbox-style levels.

• 

  
  

• ---

  
  

  The New Game Mode: "Strike Force"

  An in-depth look at Strike Force can be found here.

  
  
• Strike Force missions will be woven into the core single-player campaign, and will present themselves as various black ops missions available around the globe.
• Players won't be able to play all of the strike force missions in a single playthrough.
• Strike Force is currently only included in the campaign and isn't a separate mode. It won't allow for multiplayer but, at some point down the road, could be fleshed out. "Things like Zombies originally started as unlocks," said an Activision representative after we followed up to make sure. "We're not taking the option off the table."
• Depending on the outcome of a given strike force mission, the story will change. "You're going to choose a mission," said Lamia, "and that's a branch for the story. Say there's three missions out there—you're not going to go back and play all of them; the story goes on. If you die on a strike force mission, you die in the story."
• Going on that, it would seem that the playable characters don't feature in the Strike Force missions.
• Strike Force allows players to control squads of troops, giving follow/hold commands with the shoulder buttons.
• Strike Force also allows a zoomed-out command view via an unmanned aerial drone that lets you to set waypoints for your units to achieve shifting goals.
• Strike Force will allow you to control (at the very least) armed aerial drones, armed land-drones, and unarmed aerial drones in addition to being able to hop to the viewpoint of any of the soldiers in your squad.

• 

  
  

• ---

• The strike force missions will unfold organically but will be written into the story—in that way, they'll function somewhat like a single-player version of the multiplayer in Mass Effect 3.
• I think I heard Kiefer Sutherland voicing one of the squad members in Strike Force, but I'm not sure. Consider this a Kiefer! Rumor!

• 
  

  Multiplayer

• Multiplayer director David Vonderhaar relayed that the new approach they are taking is "One size does not fit all." That means, he said, that there is no one way to play a Call of Duty game. So, they're pulling back features like create-a-class, killstreaks, and other features and reexamining them, challenging their assumptions of "what cows are sacred."
• Multiplayer will take place entirely in the year 2025—there will be no multiplayer missions set in the 80's.
• They are taking the E-sports community very seriously. In part, that means that they're focusing on making the game more fun to watch as a spectator. Hopefully that means super cute, colorful uniforms!

  

  
  

• ---

• Online Director Dan Bunting took us through a tech demo of the upgraded graphics; while lighting upgrades and tech aren't usually the most interesting topics, what they were showing looked great. As they put it, they are aiming for "PC quality graphics running at 60 FPS on a console." The illusion was quite convincing.
• We saw two unpopulated multiplayer maps: The first map we saw was a naturalistic map located in a village in Yemen.
• The second map was called "Aftermath" and was set in a ruined downtown LA, presumably after the drone-attack that we saw in the demo.

• 
  

  Zombies

• Zombies will definitely be back in Black Ops II, and will feature all new modes that are more fleshed-out than ever.
• "There will be more zombies and more modes; just more."
• The zombies are "In the multiplayer engine." "If you think about all of the things we can do with our multiplayer engine," Lamia said, "You can start to think about how we might be looking at this." Okay then!
• Zombies are the only confirmed co-op aspect of Black Ops II. The campaign and strike-force modes do not appear to feature co-op.

And that's that.

48 facts about Call of Duty: Black Ops II. The final two facts will be made available as DLC.

(Just kidding.)

Everything We Know About Call of Duty: Black Ops II

We've seen the amazing new Call of Duty, and we can't wait to play it on November 13. Today, we're telling you all about it...