We all knew it was coming but yesterday marked the release of the first official trailer for Activision’s Black Ops 2. Along with this new video we got plenty of information on what to expect from this sequel.

So where to begin? Firstly as you could have guessed, this is a direct sequel to Black Ops (hence the number two after the name) and it is set in the near future of 2025. So basically its far enough to add a few new futuristic toys to the mix, but not so far that you have ridiculous lasers and crazy gadgets either. Black Ops 2′s multiplayer is going to take place exclusively in the game’s 2025 future while the campaign itself will flash back to certain points during  the 1980s vintage Cold War as well. You’ll play former protagonist Alex Mason in the 1980s, and as his son, David Mason, in 2025.

As you play through the campaign you’ll effect its branching storyline via either succeeding or failing at mini objectives. Fail to protect a friendly for example and rather than outright hit the game over screen and restart, the results could instead cause the story to meander from what was planned. This looks like a great excuse for repeat plays, to see how the story would have played out should you have taken a different path.

The branching story idea is taken further with ‘Strike Force’ missions; tasks taking place in hotspots around the globe that grant the opportunity to take on different roles around the battlefield. Each offer a key objective that once completed or failed can again affect the outcome back in the main campaign. These missions offer you the chance to tackle your objectives with multiple approaches as apposed to set piece after set piece similar to the story sections. You can even retreat to an eye-in-the-sky view and issues commands to the AI rather than do the fighting yourself. It sounds interesting but I’ll reserve my judgement until I get my hands on this mode.

The engine has seen an overhaul too

Once again the popular zombie mode will make a return likely offering more players as well as more on screen undead plus plenty of new modes. Activision and Treyarch were as surprised as anyone with the popularity of the once “throwaway” mode and have given their zombie team free reign to do pretty much whatever they want with the mode. After seeing Buffy and George Romero battling the hordes of undead it’ll be interesting to see how crazy this will get.

Whether you’re a fan of the yearly release of this franchise or not, you can’t deny this is still one of the better shooters to come out each year, and with some promising new features mentioned, it’ll be interesting to see if Treyarch can deliver. Much like every year, expect the next time you see this to be during Microsoft’s conference at E3.