Now that Black Ops is out the door, attention has turned to the next potential titles in the Call of Duty franchise that are expected to be in development.

Not that it's surprising that a publisher continues to make games in a successful franchise that has made them tonnes of money, but more interesting is the direction that it's rumoured to be taking.

In an article over on Gamasutra "industry sources" are cited as confirming a sci-fi theme for an upcoming CoD game from Activision's Sledgehammer Games:

Infinity Ward is still around, and working on something, even though it has suffered significant staff departures beyond West and Zampella. But Sledgehammer Games, run by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, formerly of EA's Visceral Games unit, is the wildcard. The group is working on a FPS Call of Duty game, something Activision publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg implied on last week's earnings call would be next up.

"This [next] Call of Duty title will be first-person shooter, just to make sure there's no misunderstanding there," he said, without directly mentioning Sledgehammer.

That unit hasn't talked specifically about what it's doing with the franchise. But industry sources say Sledgehammer's Call of Duty will be set in the future and feature, for lack of a better term, space Marines, a very big step for a franchise that has historically based itself on realism.

Of course, these are all just rumours and speculation, but given that the switch from WWII to Modern Warfare was so successful, it's not a huge stretch to believe Acti would take the brand to another new environment -- much like we saw with EA's Battlefield 1942 > BF2 > BF 2142.

A Call of Duty with future tech? Space Marines? Count us in.