Sledgehammer tweet hints at potential COD 2017 setting

It's Sledgehammer Games' turn to push out a Call of Duty this year, and a cryptic New Year's tweet has many believing that this latest game will be set in the 20th century. The tweet contains the following message, along with an elaborate GIF showing an old-fashioned counter whirring away against a clockwork background. "It's officially 2017!" reads the message. "Some call it the zodiac year of the Hammer. Have a safe and fun New Year's, everyone!"

By itself, that could just be an overproduced New Year's Day celebration, but an earlier tweet seems quite hinty as well. This message by Sledgehammer co-founder and studio head Michael Condrey features an image of an iconic 20th century pistol, the M1911.

OK, so that's not a lot to go on, but given that Battlefield recently veered back in time with its World War 1-set Battlefield 1, a similar move by COD doesn't seem terribly out of place. Could Call of Duty be heading to WW1, WW2, or potentially Vietnam for its 2017 installment? (Rumours appeared of the latter possibility last year.)

The most recent COD is set in the future, with spaceships and everything, and PC Gamer's Tyler Wilde didn't like it very much. Hopefully Call of Duty 2017 will improve on the formula somewhat.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.