The undead in my crystal ball

I'm going to take a moment to give Treyarch credit for releasing another batch of maps for Call of Duty: World at War ... as long as there's a PC release, of course. That last bit I say only as a matter of principle, as I have no actual interest in playing WaW anymore. But since post-release content (particularly when it's free) is one of the metrics I use for separating the good developers from the bad - and I've generally been critical of Treyarch - I feel compelled to give them the props they're due.

Now for the thing I actually wanted to write about. The majority of the footage from this trailer showcases the new zombies map. There's some new stuff in there, and although the changes are incremental, we're definitely seeing some non-trivial growth in the gametype. Combine that observation with the fact that there are significantly more custom zombies maps than traditional multiplayer maps floating around, and you have to wonder where this half of the series is headed.

Although rumor has it that Call of Duty 7 will be a Vietnam-era offering, the continued popularity of the zombies mode in WaW all but guarantees it will show up again in 2010. The only question is whether it will continue as a novelty add-on, or whether it will garner a substantially greater portion of the development budget this time around.

I'm betting on the latter, and wondering if the "Call of Duty" brand is going to be recognizable a few years down the road if I'm right.