It’s almost a rhetorical question to ask—the Call of Duty video game franchise has grossed an insane amount of money over the past few years—but it’s still something that does have a question mark at the end. Has Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 been confirmed already, a couple of weeks before Call of Duty: Black Ops II arrives?

According to Bill Murray (no, not that one), the actor who voices the popular character Captain Price, development on the game has already begun.

Developer Infinity Ward has already come out denying the rumor, saying “Interesting news today, but it’s not true; we’ve not talked with any voice actors, so all news is speculation.” But still, that’s to be expected when something leaks before a company is ready to officially announce it. It’d be silly to make such an announcement before the latest chapter in the franchise is released, potentially taking a little buzz from Black Ops II and bringing it to MW4, as opposed to waiting until the new game scores big numbers to make your announcement and continue feeding the monster that is the Call of Duty franchise.

The straight and simple truth of it all, however, is that Modern Warfare 3 shattered video game records—records set by other Call of Duty titles—and made $400 million in twenty-four hours, $775 million in five days, and over $1 billion dollars in sixteen days…one day sooner than biggest movie of all time, Avatar, pulled off. The franchise as a whole has already passed juggernaut film franchises such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (for now anyway).

Despite the fact that people say they’re done with these games, and even though they pledged to jump to other games such as Battlefield 3, Call of Duty is still the far and away king. It’s not even close. And Black Ops II looks like it has a very strong chance to shake things up and breathe new life into a franchise some felt was growing stale.

Modern Warfare 4 is happening, folks, it would be horribly bad for business not to make it, whether the company wants to move on to new things or not. The only question is when Activision/Infinity Ward will officially announce it.

For now, let’s see what Black Ops II brings to the table before thinking that far ahead.

[Source: Game Informer]