Call Of Duty is gong back to the 90s (Picture: Michael O’ Mara Books)

Next year’s Call Of Duty will be set during the 1990s, with developer Treyarch having much longer to work on it than any previous game.

Most Call Of Duty games leak out months or even years before they’re officially announced and we’ve known since July that next year’s entry is another Black Ops game by developer Treyarch.

Not only is that an easy guess, because we haven’t had a new one since 2020, but the rumours first started thanks to a couple of images accidentally leaked by Activision themselves.

Now a new source suggests that the game will ‘attempt to explore a nuanced narrative of the Gulf War.’ However, the best news is that the game has been ‘long in development’ – so hopefully it won’t just be dressed-up DLC, like this year’s Modern Warfare 3.

It’s unclear what the name of the game is, with Windows Central hesitantly describing it as Black Ops 6. However, since the last game was called Black Ops Cold War it seems very likely the new one will simply be called Black Ops Gulf War, which was already suggested in previous rumours.

Supposedly, the game’s story campaign will place, ‘a critical focus on different participants within the conflict. It will dovetail into the end of the Cold War era and explore some of the consequences therein.’

Previous rumours suggested that former SAS Major Peter Ratcliffe, writer of the book The Eye of the Storm, will be one of the main characters. The leaked images showed a F-117 stealth fighter and what appeared to be Saddam Hussein’s palace. Knowing how Call Of Duty story campaigns usually go, you can probably piece together the rest yourself.

What’s the betting you get to fly a F-117?

There’s no new information on the multiplayer but Windows Central repeats previous rumours suggesting a number of remastered maps from previous Black Ops games will be included, such as fan favourites Grind and WMD.

A more traditional Zombies mode is expected, that will be round-based rather than this year’s open world affair – which isn’t surprising as developer Treyarch were the original creators of Zombies mode.

Perhaps the most surprising new information is that the game will feature a ‘large pre-order early access bonus’, allowing you to play the whole game several days early and some modes weeks before the official release date.

Modern Warfare 3 already did this, allowing those who pre-ordered to play the story campaign – the most heavily criticised aspect of the game – a week before anyone else.

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The longer development time will hopefully ensure a higher quality game than this year, as it becomes the first entry in the franchise to be published since Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard and Sony’s marketing deal for the game expired.

That’s not expected to make any significant difference though, with Microsoft insisting there’ll be no exclusive content or early betas, but it will likely be the first time any of the series is available on Game Pass from day one.

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Next year’s Call Of Duty will be set during the 1990s, with developer Treyarch having much longer to work on it than any previous game.