Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 pre-order numbers indicate another huge success

Activision is expecting the latest Call Of Duty title to be yet another huge success, reporting that pre-orders for Treyarch's Black Ops 3 are up "significantly" over those for 2014's Advanced Warfare. The comments came from president and CEO Eric Hirshberg during an earnings call on 3 November.

"We couldn't be more excited about the launch this Friday," he said. "We have strong momentum indicated by a number of factors, but just to name a few: the growing engagement around the past Black Ops titles; the significant year-on-year lift in pre-orders; consumer sentiment around our marketing assets which is more positive for Black Ops III than any Call of Duty title on record; a great partnership with Sony across consumer, trade and custom PS4 bundles; and our ranking as Nielsen's number one most anticipated title of the year."

Technically, Sledgehammer's Advanced Warfare was not the first Call Of Duty on current gen systems but it certainly heralded the series' arrival more than Call Of Duty: Ghosts. It marked a big change for the series, introducing boost abilities which improved traversal. Black Ops 3 adds more still with wall-running.

Black Ops 3 was always going to be bigger due to the huge success of the Black Ops series, which has rivalled the Modern Warfare series that first catapulted Call Of Duty to major mainstream success in 2007.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3 will likely be the biggest game of 2015 but arrives among a bustling release schedule that includes multi-format games Star Wars: Battlefront and Fallout 4, as well as exclusives such as Halo 5: Guardians and Rise Of The Tomb Raider.

Black Ops 3 is out on 6 November on PS4, Xbox One, PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

For all the latest video game news follow us on Twitter @IBTGamesUK.