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.

In an interesting move, Activision has joined Electronic Arts in the ranks of major publishers skipping a presence at E3 this year. While Activision will showcase Infinity Ward's 2016 Call of Duty instalment at Sony's PlayStation booth, the company won't have its own area on the floor.

"In June, we re going to be at E3 showcasing gameplay from Infinity Ward s ambitious new game," reads a recent blogpost on the Activision website. "We re looking forward to sharing exciting new details about the next great Call of Duty game in partnership with our friends at PlayStation. We re proud to be participating in this premier video game event, but won t have an Activision booth on the show floor."

It follows EA's announcement last month that they'll be opting out of a presence on the showroom floor, though that publisher will still host events coinciding with the convention. EA Play is a three-day public event at nearby Club Nokia, taking place between June 12 and 14. Meanwhile, EA's pre-E3 keynote will take place on June 12.

E3 will still be a massive show: Activision is usually light on huge, unexpected announcements (and Destiny 2 isn't expected until next year, now), while EA's release schedule is packed with games we already know a bit about. Anyway, Bethesda has confirmed its presence, and their pre-show press conference was arguably the biggest of 2015.

As you may have heard, we're running our first London live event on March 5/6: The PC Gamer Weekender. It will be full of new and upcoming games to play, we've got top developer talent flying in to present their upcoming games on our developer stages, and we'll be running tournaments, hardware experiments and competitions.

Speaking of competitions, how would you like to win a limited edition Call of Duty Loot Crate worth $130? If you book a ticket for the PC Gamer Weekender before midnight on Thursday Feb 25 you'll be automatically entered into a sweepstakes to become one of our four lucky winners.

That's not the only prize on offer at the PC Gamer Weekender. We'll be running tournaments for some high-tech gaming gear. Plus, Sega will be giving out scratchcards to everyone that visits their zone, each of which grants the scratcher a game from Sega's wide-ranging library of PC games. Oh, and when you buy a ticket you get a Steam key for Dustforce, the electrifying combat platformer that we gave 90% at review.

To enter the sweepstakes and earn a spot at the event, book here, and don't forget to apply the code PCG20 to knock 20% off the price of a standard ticket.

As for the CoD Loot Crate compo, here are the necessary terms and conditions. 

The sky is blue, Half-Life 3 is not out and Call of Duty will get its 13th major instalment later this year. Publisher Activision confirmed the release today during an investor's call, and while we don't know what it's called or whether it'll have zombies, we do know that Infinity Ward will take the reins. The last game Infinity Ward turned in was Ghosts, but the studio is better known for the Modern Warfare sub-series.

There isn't much else to report from the investor's call: World of Warcraft is getting another expansion this year known as Legion, but we already knew that. A proper Destiny sequel is scheduled for 2017, and while studio Bungie has been recruiting for developers specializing in PC, it's yet to be seen whether it will hit our platform.

The last COD instalment, Black Ops 3, was a serviceable but mostly unremarkable entry. "The graphics get a little prettier, the story gets a little darker, and another Call of Duty counts time as we march together toward death," our optimistic reviewer Ian Birnbaum wrote. 

It's already looking like a busy 2016 for games: here's our exhaustive list of the most exciting titles set to launch this year. 

Video game publishers talk and think a lot. They talk and think about things that you and I, lowly consumers, could never hope to understand. They talk and think about things that we can only dream about. For Activision, among the things talked and thought about is the potential for Call of Duty remasters, according to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, speaking to Game Informer.

"If done well, I think [remasters] can be great," Hirshberg said. "You talk about nostalgia, and people have such connection to the games they love from the last cycle. They want to see what it would look like if someone did it right for this cycle. 

"It's always the opportunity cost," he continued. "Meaning we need everybody we can get to make the content we're already committed to for our new games. It's always a matter of finding great people to do that work. I would love to play Modern Warfare 1 or the original Black Ops. There's certainly a deep well there. No announcements, but it's something we talk about and think about a lot."

So there you have it, Activision talks about and thinks about Call of Duty remasters. It's no solid confirmation that it'll ever happen, but the hope that Modern Warfare or Black Ops could be revamped can be safely kept alive.