E3 2012: Black Ops 2: The "most provocative, shocking" Call of Duty yet

After closing out the Microsoft conference with the total and utter annihilation of Los Angeles (don't worry, Californians: it won't happen for another 13 years), it's easy to think Black Ops II is just another explosion-packed round of Call of Duty mayhem. Well, it is - and it isn't.
After sitting through an intriguing behind closed doors demo, we grabbed director David Anthony to talk branching storylines, Strike Force, villains and much, much more...
Call of Duty: Black Ops II Gameplay E3 2012Watch more videos like this

09:03

Black Ops 2 marks the biggest switch in the series for some time in terms of setting and gameplay types. Who did you have to convince at Activision in order to take it in a different direction?
Good question! I can tell you this - and it sounds like a cliché - because you always hear people say, "Oh the publisher was so supportive!" but, honestly, in this, they genuinely were. Because they understand that, at Treyarch, what we always try to do is ask: "What are the reasons that people are going to come back and play this game?" You have a lot of choices when it comes to entertainment these days and we take that very seriously, and we want to make sure that we give people experiences that they haven't seen before in the franchise. That was really important to us. So, when I go to Activision and I say that, they're very supportive of that. So, in that respect, it was actually kind of easy.
The key mantra from the start was: surprise. We want to surprise people at every step of the way while they're playing this game. Break expectations. When they're playing this game, whether it's from a story point of view, character development, gameplay types, the actual structure of the campaign itself - just when people think that they're starting to get to grips

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