Power Is Everything In First Campaign Trailer For Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Activision has unveiled the first story-centric trailer for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which effectively proves that Atlas — the private military corporation at the center of the game’s storyline — is a lean, mean and autonomous killing machine.

Narrated in a foreboding manner by Troy Baker — who lends his vocal chords to the game’s morally ambitious protagonist, Private Mitchell — the footage documents the world’s first global terrorist attack; one which instigates the rise of private military corporations as governments become desperate for a response team.

Set in the year 2054, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will also introduce a slew of new features to the franchise, including exoskeletons, hoverbikes and bleeding-edge military technology. Understandably, many have wondered how Sledgehammer plan to incorporate this new tech into the game’s online component; either way, we’ll have our answers when the studio reveals the multiplayer portion of Advanced Warfare on August 8th.

In terms of single-player, though, the core narrative within each passing Call of Duty has been lacklustre at best, traditionally speaking — baring Modern Warfare and, arguably, Black Ops II. Still, with Kevin Spacey and industry veteran Troy Baker on voice acting duties backed up with an intriguing and all too realistic near-future setting, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is certainly shaping up to have an intriguing campaign at its crux.

After all, with Kevin Spacey hot on everyone’s lips as the wonderfully narcissistic Frank Underwood in House of Cards, drafting the Oscar-winning actor in to play a power hungry, almost Shakespearean villain in the form of Atlas CEO Jonathan Irons seems like the logical next step.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare drags the gargantuan franchise forty years into the future and is due to launch across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and PC on November 4th, 2014. Be sure to check back on August 8th when we’ll have a full report on the game’s anticipated multiplayer debut.