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Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg has addressed the strong reaction to the debut trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

“ There just aren’t many entertainment franchises on earth that can generate the kind of passion that Call of Duty can.

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Figures observed in the first 24 hours.

International trailers are registering similarly anomalous results, compared to previous games.

“ We have more people playing Black Ops 3, a game that takes place in the future... than any game in our history.

Revealed earlier this week , the new Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer – published on the official Call of Duty YouTube channel – immediately began accumulating likes and dislikes at a far more even rate than had been the case with previous Call of Duty reveal trailers.“There just aren’t many entertainment franchises on earth that can generate the kind of passion that Call of Duty can... and that’s a good thing.“Secondly, of course, we know there are people in our community who are nostalgic for the boots on the ground-style gameplay; that’s why we made Modern Warfare Remastered. But we also have millions of people in our community who want to have new innovative experiences in the game each year and Infinite Warfare is going to deliver that.“The good news is this year we found a way to deliver both in one package while keeping our community together. While of course we see the passionate opinions on line, we also look at other measurements and the fact is — while it’s very early — pre-orders are off to a very strong start. Views of the reveal trailer… are up and, in fact, the number of likes per view on the Infinite Warfare trailer are the highest we’ve ever seen.”Hirshberg went on to explain that this sort of reaction has been observed by the company in the past, noting the reveal trailer for the futuristic Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer the publisher had unveiled at that point.“And that went on to become our most successful game ever,” said Hirshberg.The image below is a snapshot of the likes to dislike ratio for the Infinite Warfare trailer compared to the previous five Call of Duty games. These were collected within the first 24 hours of the Infinite Warfare trailer’s arrival.In the days following the dislikes for Infinite Warfare have actually accelerated; outpacing likes by some margin and, at the time of writing, stand at close to 400,000. As noted by Forbes , this actually makes Infinite Warfare the single most disliked gaming-related YouTube video to date.It’s also worth noting that the divisive nature of Infinite Warfare’s first trailer is not unique to the core US-based Call of Duty channel’s version of the trailer. Trailers published to Call of Duty’s official UK, German, Spanish, French, and Russian channels are registering similar results, albeit with lower overall view figures.“We have more people playing Black Ops 3, a game that takes place in the future, with boost jumps and fictitious weapons, than any game in our history,” he said.“What we know for sure is that if we always just did what worked in the past and never took any creative risks, we wouldn’t have a franchise. The day to worry is the day we stop trying new things.”Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, developed by original Call of Duty studio Infinity Ward, is set to release on November 4, 2016.

Luke is Games Editor at IGN's Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter