Ghosts "still plays in the realm of plausibility"

Infinity Ward released the campaign trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts yesterday, and it's wake Activision's community manager, Dan Amrich, has been offering a little context.

In a blog post Amrich has outlined how the concept behind the new Call of Duty campaign is grounded in realism, even if that realism is punctuated by bombastic set pieces and an "action-movie attitude".

In particular he discusses the concept of kinetic bombardment, and mentions that the tech starring in the Ghosts trailer has also been considered by the US military: "Telephone poles from space? It's actually more science than science fiction. The concept of kinetic bombardment - nicknamed in the science and defense communities as "Rods from God" - has been used in sci-fi stories for years by authors including Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, and Neal Stephenson, but it's also been seriously considered by the United States Air Force as a military strike that could create mass devastation without nuclear fallout."

He continued: "In fact, long after IW had committed to the concept for Ghosts, a thread about the USAF's Project Thor showed up on Reddit in May of this year, which simultaneously made people involved in CoD feel good about their game's fiction and a bit worried that the "catastrophic event" might leak. (This was an eerie echo of last year, when President Obama started talking about rare earth minerals two months before Treyarch revealed it was playing a role in the story of Black Ops II. Say what you will about its over-the-top gameplay and action-movie attitude, but Call of Duty still plays in the realm of plausibility.)"

You can see the campaign trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts below. The new game in the series is set to launch on current-gen platforms on November 5, with next-gen versions following thereafter.