The Call of Duty series used to tell its stories in the World War II time period but moved forward in time and eventually in the future with newer games like Advanced Warfare and Infinite Warfare. The juggernaut shooter series returns to its roots this year with Call of Duty: WWII, which will feature a D-Day mission and more from the historical period.

Is the game a one-off, or does Activision plan to continue making World War II games or others from different time periods? That's the question Game Informer put to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, the man who is heavily involved in the future direction of all of Activision's franchises.

He teased that Call of Duty: WWII could be just the first in a new era of historical Call of Duty games.

"Well, you know I can't reveal things on the slate that are several years off," he said. "But no I don't necessarily see it as a one-off; I think that World War II and historical settings more broadly are very rich territory, and I think there's every possibility that that could become an area that we explore more than once."

The newest Call of Duty games, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, were all set in the future. Hirshberg said part of the reason why Activision pushed into the future was because players were becoming "fatigued" with historical settings and wanted something new. However, Infinite Warfare underperformed, and Hirshberg said in the interview that "we might have had one more future game than we needed [laughs]," referring to Infinite Warfare.

"Not to make any comment on the quality of the game from last year, but I think that while there were a lot of innovations and a lot of fun new things that players got to do, it was one future game too many," he admitted.

While Infinite Warfare may have underperformed, it was still a massive hit and was the best-selling game of the year in the US for 2016.

In other Call of Duty news, the second weekend of the Call of Duty: WWII beta just ended and Sledgehammer outlined what it learned from player feedback.

Call of Duty: WWII launches in November for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.