Whether you loved or hated the futuristic combat of last year's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, it looks like that theme is here to stay. Activision has unveiled the first gameplay trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops III, which will bring mechs, drones and a host of cool-looking firearms to Xbox One, PS4 and PC players on Nov. 6.
"What happens when the soldier becomes the weapon?" asks the narrator of the Black Ops III trailer, which quickly cuts to a clip of a soldier's mechanical arm turning into a machine gun. High-tech combat is once again the name of the game here, as characters can be seen hacking drones, duking it out with robots and even unleashing what looks like a swarm of mechanical bees on the enemy, which is as awesome as it is gross.
Black Ops III seems to share Advanced Warfare's emphasis on player movement, as the trailer showcases a mix of wall-running, dash-punching and sliding under giant mechs to blow them up from below. The game seems to feature some sort of crossbow, and, if firearms don't do it for you, it looks like you'll be able to quite literally lunge at your adversaries with two explosive rockets in hand.
Aesthetically, the game is shaping up to be one of the most bleakly beautiful Call of Duty installments yet, with war-torn battlefields and photo-realistic faces that are similar in detail to last year's game. There's little to learn from the trailer in terms of Black Ops III's story, though it hints that the game's fusion of man and machine won't go entirely smoothly for its soldiers. If you watch until the very end, there's also a tease that the popular Zombies mode from previous Black Ops games will return.
While a new Call of Duty release slated for fall is no surprise, the fact that Black Ops III is getting a multiplayer beta is. Those who pre-order the game will get to test-drive its multiplayer sometime before launch on PS4, Xbox One and PC, though we still don't know when exactly that beta kicks off.
Mike Andronico is an associate editor at Tom's Guide. Follow Mike @MikeAndronico and on Google+. Follow us @TomsGuide, on Facebook and on Google+
