It's been eight years since the last Modern Warfare shooter, but the 2019 edition of Call of Duty may take the series back there—that's the rumor making the rounds after a video of four US football players getting an early preview of the game turned up on YouTube.
Four players—Riley Ridley, Christian Miller, Jacques Patrick, and Tajaé Sharpe—posted about the event on Instagram, and were able to avoid revealing anything about it (except that it's "super cool" and "lit"). But a short video clip of the play session, slowed for clarity, has an awful lot of people convinced that someone in the background says the words "killstreak" and—here's the big one—"Modern Warfare 4."
What do you think?
Personally, I'm not convinced. One of the comments on YouTube says it's "probably just pareidolia," and after googling what that is, I'm inclined to agree: I hear the words because I'm seeing the subtitles. Even with that I don't really pick up "modern," just "warfare 4," and after I took a break and then listened without watching, it was much more difficult to pick up anything coherent.
On the other hand, years of that rock-and-roll music has destroyed my hearing, so maybe the words clearer than my decrepit 'drums are able to detect. Either way, the odds of a return to Modern Warfare look pretty good at this point. As noted by GamesRadar, this isn't the first time that Modern Warfare rumors have surfaced, and Activision Blizzard CFO Dennis Durkin hinted at a blast from the past of some sort during a February earnings call, describing it as "a great step forward in the franchise that is also rooted in some of the franchise's most important history." And unlike last year's Black Ops 4, the 2019 game will have a singleplayer campaign.