After 6 Call of Duty games, Treyarch is hitting its stride with Black Ops III

Call of Duty: Black Ops III is an ambitious undertaking. The next installment in the multibillion-dollar video game franchise is being built by a team of hundreds at Activision’s Treyarch studio in Santa Monica, Calif. By the time the game ships in the fall, Treyarch will have worked on it for three years, a year longer than the usual Call of Duty game, since Activision now has three studios trading off the duty, including Treyarch, Infinity Ward, and Sledgehammer Games.

The Call of Duty games have generated more than $10 billion in sales for Activision over the course of 12 years. And the prior two Black Ops games within the Call of Duty franchise have been played by almost 100 million players. In fact, more than 9 million still play those games every month. The question at hand is whether Call of Duty: Black Ops III will top those previous games and restore growth to the Call of Duty franchise, which is still huge but has stalled more recently.