The Call of Duty series been called a lot of things, but publisher Activision is maintaining that "unrealistic" isn't one of them, in light of premiering the game's campaign trailer.
In case you missed the trailer (which you can check out below), it opens with a gunfight aboard an orbiting satellite, and during the ensuing chaos, some type of rods are sent plummeting towards Earth, ravaging Los Angeles. After the events of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, it seems like Activision must really have it in for the city of angels.
Call the premise out there if you like, but Activision Community Manager Dan Amrich would argue that the plot is definitely "in the realm of plausibility."
Writing in his blog, Amrich noted, "Telephone poles from space? It's actually more science than science fiction. The concept of kinetic bombardment - nicknamed in the science and defense communities as 'Rods from God' - has been used in sci-fi stories for years by authors including Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and Neal Stephenson..." (Frank Miller even got in on that too with The Dark Knight Returns story arc).
"...but it's also been seriously considered by the United States Air Force as a military strike that could create mass devastation without nuclear fallout. In fact, long after IW had committed to the concept for Ghosts, a thread about the USAF's Project Thor showed up on Reddit in May of this year, which simultaneously made people involved in CoD feel good about their game's fiction and a bit worried that the "catastrophic event" might leak."
So, plausible? I suppose. Likely? I hope not.
In light of this, I can't help but be reminded of a University of Texas professor who managed to make the plot for Call of Duty: Black Ops II also seem plausible. In case you forgot, the game centered on a terrorist who manages to infiltrate America's drone network, and use it against the country.
Professor Todd Humphreys and a group of researchers, with a budget of a measely $1000, managed to build a "spoofer" that could take control of a UAV owned by the college. According to a statement from the university, a spoofer is a device that "creates false civil GPS signals that trick the vehicle's GPS receiver into thinking nothing is amiss--even as it steers a new navigational course induced by the outside hacker." And that's exactly what they were able to do with the UAV. The really impressive part? Their audience was the US Department of Homeland Security. You can read more on that here.
Call of Duty: Ghosts is out on November 5 on for PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It will also be a launch title for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.