Call of Duty games are “going to get richer, deeper, more engaging”, says Kotick

By Stephany Nunneley

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has told attendees at the Deutsche Bank 2010 Technology Conference that if you want to know how Call of Duty games will look visually in five years, look no further than Black Ops.

Speaking at the conference, Kotick was asked about the future of Call of Duty, specifically what to expect from it within the next five years visually when compared with today.

“I think when you see Black Ops this holiday, that’s going to give you a great sense of how different the games will visually look ,” he said. “But if you look at that game, it’s only going to get richer, the characters are only going to get deeper, the stories are only going to get more engaging.

Then, when you think about some of the things we have incorporated, we’ve talked a little bit about Wager Match and what we’re doing in multiplayer, but to play against people you have an identity with and using that headset to be able to communicate with a person you’re using a lot of these physical devices that have a higher level of engagement. Having more additive content on a more regular, frequent basis, these games are going to start to look like film.”

Adding these new options, like Wager Match to keep things fresh, and offering frequent DLC updates will be nice, but Kotick also talked a bit about technology allowing in-game characters to show more emotion like actual human actors.

“The characters you see on the screen are going to be much more realistic than they are today, ” he said. “They’re going to be more compelling, they’re going to be more believable, there’s going to be so many more things you can do from a gameplay perspective than what we can do today.

“When you see innovations like Kinect or Move, where you now have the ability to use voice to actually control what you see on the screen, and for motion to control what you see on the screen, those are going to be big changes in the interface that will probably broaden the appeal of videogames.

“But we’re seeing for the first time, opportunities to reach consumers who never played videogames before.”

Call of Duty: Black Ops is out November 9 for PC, PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360.