That sounds ominous.

Evil publisher Activision, best known for milking the crap out of any half decent money spinning game they get on their hands, and for curbing the creative process at their developers, believes that Infinity Ward may have been down and out lately, but that the developer of two of the biggest shooters of all time will return.

Activision VP Dave Stohl had this to say about the matter:

‘Activision will… support the rebuilding process at Infinity Ward.

‘I use the term ‘support’ because as much as possible we don’t want to tamper with that group of people. We want Infinity Ward to be Infinity Ward. It’s a very specific culture.

He added, ‘There’s a development philosophy that remains intact, and the studio is attracting amazing new talent. Ultimately, Infinity Ward will rise from the ashes.’

Woo, that last sentence was a tad dramatic.

Infinity Ward’s latest game was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, sequel to the 2007 hit Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare 2 wowed critics, and went on to sell nearly twenty million copies. Apparently, it’s sales were slowing down, which caused Activision to release a demo for the game on XBLA and PSN Store a couple of days ago, which promptly propelled the game back to the top of the charts.

The next game in the Call of Duty franchise is the Treyarch developed Black Ops, which is set in the Cold War era. It hits the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DS and PC later this year.