Call of Duty dataminers figured out the subject of Xbox’s redacted June showcase so fast. (I’m not gonna bury the lede: its Black Ops 5, for those playing at home)
Earlier this morning, Xbox announced that its traditional June showcase would return to Summer Game Fest. It’s another early start, as the June showcases always are, but we Aussies are used to that. Along with the showcase, Xbox noted that a second show, a Redacted Direct, would follow. This is similar to last year, when Xbox held a Starfield Direct right after the main showcase.
Immediately, the internet detectives went to work on the Redacted art. The gut check said it was Call of Duty, the hugely valuable weapon in Microsoft’s ever-expanding Iron Throne. It took about thirty minutes for fan accounts like Charlie Intel to confirm they’d seen the wolf insignia Xbox used in the announcement art in Call of Duty Modern Warfare III datamines.
Reading the visible bits of the lettering behind the art’s “redactions” and matching them to the existing CoD font, Charlie Intel was also able to seemingly confirm the title is, in fact, Call of Duty Black Ops 5 (stylised with the roman numeral V). Even the Activision logo in the bottom right wasn’t safe.
It’s been known for a while that Treyarch was hard at work on the 2024 edition of Call of Duty, quietly thought to be Black Ops 5. That the files were found in MWIII would seem to follow-on from last year — much of what would become MWIII was found in the previous year’s game too.
So there you go. That has got to be a land speed record for the quickest run from “We’ve Got A Secret” to the beans being spilled absolutely everywhere by eagle-eyed fans.
Leave a Reply