As the Call of Duty franchise continues the transition between console generations, the video game industry demands more. Actors are required to lend their faces as well as their voices to the medium more and more nowadays, meaning Kevin Spacey’s turn in the upcoming ‘Advanced Warfare’ entry is nothing to be surprised it.

 

The actor, most recently lauded for his chilling portrayal of Frank Underwood – the indefatigable, unscrupulous, ruthless politician who stops at nothing, not even the sanctity of human life, to get where he wants to be. Now arm that man with a futuristic army capable of deploying drones and super high-tech weaponry and what have you got? Well it’s “Advanced Warfare”. 

The high-octane trailer sees soldiers sporting exoskeleton suits, enabling them to jump superhuman distances, scale walls and wield all kinds of integrated weaponry. This, after Titanfall added a similar mechanics to the multiplayer space – something Call of Duty revolutionised and subsequently dominated over the past decade. 

Some say the Call of Duty series is in need of change, of reinvention. But despite criticisms that the franchise has grown stale, it remains one of the most commercially successful titles of all time, selling over 100m copies since the first title arrived in 2003. 

The games reached their peak of their powers with Call of Duty: Black Ops II - which shifted over 7.5m copies on its launch day and reached $1bn in revenue after just two weeks, beaten only by Grand Theft Auto V for that mantle. Last year's title, Call of Duty: Ghosts fared less well, although has still sold almost 20m copies. 

Call of Duty ghosts'Call of Duty: Ghosts'

It’s a modern day behemoth of gaming, and Kevin Spacey’s name, alongside the lure of an extended period in which to fully explore the next generation of technology, sales for ‘Advanced Warfare’ should see a significant improvement on the last entry’s results.