There’s a rumor going around this weekend that Infinity Ward may follow up with Call of Duty 4 with a Call of Duty: Space Marine Opera. Supposedly someone within the company has stated that they are working on a sci-fi game that may or may not be revealed at E3. Of course immediately speculation turned to the heralded developer taking the realism inspired brilliant shooter into unfamiliar territory. I’m not ready to make a declaration of Infinity Ward’s intents on so little info, but whether it’s a new franchise or a revamp to CoD I’m intrigued.

While Call of Duty has been hip deep in realistic war shooting gameplay its entire run, there’s nothing that says Infinity Ward can’t have a little futuristic fun and still maintain the CoD aesthetic. For starters there is no reason to think that the company with a deep understanding of this genre couldn’t spread its wings, perhaps look at some DARPA projects, and extrapolate what a war against an invading alien force in the near future would look like.

On the other hand this could be a completely new franchise. This would mean IW is leaving one clichéd background (WWII) for yet another (space marine). Do you care? I’ve always thought that a good game is good regardless of its genre or setting. If CoD4 were the exact same game, but set in the world of Max Payne it still would have kicked ass. We’ll have to wait until E3 to find out for sure.