UPDATED UPDATE: Mysterious Countdown Brings Call Of Duty To Mind

By Justin Fassino | 25 February 2011 | 43 Comments

Screen shot 2011-02-25 at 11.39.21 AM

UPDATE UPDATE: Geoff Keighley updated his personal site with confirmation that Toronto-based creative collective We Can Pretend is behind the website and promotion. The project behind the timer is not a game at all but a live-action film based on Modern Warfare 2. To substantiate this, Keighley received the following still from the supposed production from someone identified as “FindMakarov.”

This is a contentious start for the project, but it certainly drew a lot of eyeballs. It may not be Modern Warfare 3, but how many of you guys would be up for watching a live-action short based on Modern Warfare 2?

UPDATE: A little Nancy Drew sleuthing on our part has led to some interesting finds. I’ll break them down in the order of which we discovered them. First off, Geoff Keighly, host of GTTV, tweeted that he had been in touch with Activision and they claimed there will NOT be a new Call of Duty reveal next week. Okay, so let’s assume they aren’t lying. What are the other possibilities? Well, the Battlefield 3 reveal event that’s planned for GDC next week ends just six hours before the timer will be up, which could be when the embargo for said event lifts. But there’s a couple of other noteworthy things. Josh Olin (AKA JD_2020), community manager at Treyarch, said he saw a rough cut of a new Black Ops trailer that is set to run next week. I’m going to guess the countdown is unrelated to that because of the name Makarov in the URL. My personal theory? Duty Calls 2.

Don’t look now, but the hype train for 2011′s Call of Duty has begun. A cryptic countdown has appeared over at FindMakarov.com, complete with the no-standard Modern Warfare color and font scheme. The countdown ends a little over four days from now, which is smack dab in the middle of GDC. What will be revealed? Could be a new Call of Duty site, a trailer, or another piece of promotion.

Back in 2009, the first footage we got of Modern Warfare 2 was the famous “No Russian” elevator scene done in green static with audio after a lengthy countdown site.

There’s one major clue here that should point CoD fans in the right direction: Makarov was the Russian arms dealer from Modern Warfare 2 that played the role of antagonist for most of the game. Given the Modern Warfare branch of the CoD franchise and its penchant for returning characters from game to game, I’d say Modern Warfare 3 gets revealed at GDC next week (no surprise there).

43 Comments

Posted by Lesovikk1 on 25 February 11 at 9:01pm

Well, i think cods got to repetative for people, and this will sell less that what activsion is speculating.
I personally am not getting hyped over this, As a pc gamer we have got the bad versions of codmw2 and cod:bo, so i can pretty much say that the pc sales will fall for activsion this year, and hopefully they will include dedicated servers this time.

Oh well time for the xbox community to over exaggerate the hype and they cry like hell when the game is bad.

Im only getting this at christmas, since i dont really care about cod multiplayer anymore since its just a repeat of the last cod with different skins or killstreaks. And im only getting it for the single since mw2 left off on a clifthanger -_-

But anyway best of luck to iw, sledgehammer and ravenganes.
Posted by noobsauce on 25 February 11 at 9:13pm

i dont think this cod is going to be any good, i dont think the studi sledgehammer studios, has enough experence
Posted by Dan on 25 February 11 at 11:18pm

If it is COD, people will buy…
Posted by StickNoob117 on 25 February 11 at 11:29pm

I agree with noobsauce, but they are partnered with Infinity Ward after all, aren’t they?
Posted by Bollakz on 26 February 11 at 12:32am

Lol this is just getting silly now, they keep throwing out Call of Dutys every year and it’s ALWAYS the same fucking game!

they are just money whores trying to hype up their games to take out money for something we think will be good, it never is.
Posted by Dexternation on 26 February 11 at 12:46am

@sicknoob. Yh they are but it’s a scabby slimed down version with like 4 people left from when the founders left and took half the crew with them when activation screwed them over. So I have doubts about if it will be any good but just the name will sell it anyway :/
Posted by Mitchell on 26 February 11 at 12:46am

the timer stopped?
Posted by Brandon on 26 February 11 at 1:54am

your right the cod series are getting a lil repetitive but it still has that little drive to give it a good game. also i think what activision has to do in order to make a acual amazing cod again in make a MMO FPS call of duty. now that would be a game i could get behind
Posted by prettyboy on 26 February 11 at 3:01am

Hey cod makers have fired infinityward so it includes cod francise witch means its fake, but if there was a mw3 it wouldnt be a cod, i love mw’s though.
Posted by XBL N PSN:Power0fStorm on 26 February 11 at 3:18am

Why more of Call Of Duty games??
People will get bored so faster and everyone will change to Battlefield or Medal Of Honor
Posted by CODFAN on 26 February 11 at 3:27am

Is this for the release of the game or beta of somesort? Cant find anything on google..
Posted by Andy on 26 February 11 at 3:31am

The timer ended
Posted by Josh on 26 February 11 at 3:39am

Activision can kiss my ass. The fact that they have the nerve to make a mw3 even after getting rid of pretty much half of infinity ward just shows there money hungry. I can’t wait until resPawn studios comes out with a new game.
Posted by Ratzu on 26 February 11 at 4:19am

I hope you all know that Infinity Ward is just a name now, it’s not the company that we all know and love, it’s not the same people that brought us COD: 4 and Modern Warfare 2. The developers that created COD: 4 and Modern Warfare 2 left to Respawn Entertainment after the fight with Activision. But they will be using the Modern Warfare 2 engine, so it’s probably not going to turn out like Black Ops (Not that I don’t like the game). But Infinity Ward won’t be working on the multiplayer, Raven Software will, and Raven Software claims this time it’s going to be different, not just a re-skinning of COD: 4 like World at War, Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops.But, we will just have to wait to find out more details. It is going to be released on November 9th (As always).
Posted by Rohan on 26 February 11 at 4:33am

hory shit
Posted by kevin on 26 February 11 at 6:18am

don’t compare IW to Treyarch..
COD 4 and MW2 are unique games, different from each other. So many changes.
WaW and Black Ops are just “remakes” of IW’s games. They just refine and balance the game and add some small features.
IW will dominate.
I hope so :)
Posted by FaBreeZy on 26 February 11 at 6:29am

Hopefully this will save the CoD series, after the release of Black Ops, another shitty game by yours truely:Treyarch.
And is it 4 days,19 hours, 20min, and 40sec?
Posted by Daniel on 26 February 11 at 6:35am

CoD is a must for the new breed of FPS gamers. We may see the repetitiveness, but they see the awesome. What awesome? We don’t know yet. Something WILL be there that will make people get the game. Personally I see new call of duty games as new DLC with more maps. But it also comes with a new campaign, mechanics, weapons, perks, style, etc. I’d say all that for DLC should cost around 50$+10$ because they know people will still get it even if it’s 10 bucks more.
Posted by NobleReflex on 26 February 11 at 6:42am

Guys, if you notice, when the timer actually starts when you load the website, there is a picture that seems to be a guy in a beret..Possibly Shepherd but he’s dead..
Posted by Jess on 26 February 11 at 6:51am

4 days? or 4months?
Posted by yeaitis on 26 February 11 at 7:36am

SOO FUCKING GLAD INFINITY WARD ISNT MAKING THIS!!!!!

i might buy it
Posted by Mah Boi on 26 February 11 at 7:55am

@Mitchell
no it hasn’t you need to go to http://findmakarov.com/
that’s were the timer is.
Posted by Daget J Sparrow on 26 February 11 at 8:06am

Update: IT WAS A HOAX!!!
Posted by Nezo on 26 February 11 at 10:18am

I noticed something in the countdown is that when you open the site a picture of a man flashes
i was able to printscreen it : http://img844.imageshack.us/i/mw3nm.jpg/
If anyone could make anything of it please say
Posted by Brotaka on 26 February 11 at 3:03pm

Can someone post the link to the countdown
Posted by josh on 26 February 11 at 6:15pm

MW3 or BL2 awesome.
I think it is the countdown to obama’s muslim bomb reveal.
a song comes to mind…
BURN BABY BURN!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by noobsauce on 26 February 11 at 6:44pm

its also rimmored that sledgehammer studios saied it will be a 3rd person action adventure, i dont know how credible this is cause there website saide it would be 1st person, but i have no faith in sledgehammer and the 5 or so people who are left of infinity ward, the rest went to respawn studios at EA, my opinion this is going to be terrible and should just be avoided, but trearchs next cod in 2 yrs might be decent, but i think this is the beginig of the end for cods dominance
Posted by Tholomew on 26 February 11 at 8:02pm

I actually think that the fact the it is a new studio might help this time. Yes Infinity Ward did a great job with both MW 1 and 2, but there is no doubt from anyone that MW 1 is the better game. I think that a new studio might refresh the series somewhat. That’s my hope at least. And dedicated servers, please.
Posted by JerreyRough on 26 February 11 at 9:30pm

Activision has publicly said through several outlets that they have nothing to do with this. It’s probably just some hoax’ers doing it to hype it for the lulz. In this day and age that is really easy to do…
Posted by zck2020 on 27 February 11 at 3:28am

For fuck’s sake, enough with the Call of Duty Games. Please Activision, stop making them.
Posted by MrOneStrange on 27 February 11 at 4:39am

@Lesovikk1 from what I’ve heard so far MW3 is supposedly a prequel to CoD4 so if you are wanting to finish off the MW2 campaign cliffhanger it sounds like no luck… But hopefully this means we get to play as price or soap b4 they were epic badassess, when they were younger epic badassess… but just thought I’d let you know
Posted by marco on 27 February 11 at 8:42am

if its doesnt hve zombies i dont think it will much replay value like waw or black ops
Posted by AITIKOIRA on 27 February 11 at 9:34pm

I KNOW WHAT’S THIS ABOUT!

red color means that now we get to play russian side in upcoming MW3, or maybe in the futuristic warfare :O
Posted by jcracken on 27 February 11 at 10:13pm

The site’s been updated, now it’s red and has a submarine type tracking system. There are several red dots in the upper right hand corner. When the submarine line rotates, you can see a faint outline of continents. If that was a map of the world, the dots would be up in Russia and the Arctic Ocean.
Posted by Domis268 on 28 February 11 at 10:06am

They should make cod mw2 part 2 find makarov
Posted by Inside Gaming: Daily Video Gaming News Blog | Machinima.com | Machinima.com Inside Gaming News on 28 February 11 at 4:54pm

[...] through OnLive and get the microconsole and Metro 2033 for free. That’s like pre-ordering Modern Warfare 3 and getting a free Xbox or PS3 and Metro — sort of. The microconsole plus controller is only [...]
Posted by Lesovikk1 on 28 February 11 at 8:22pm

Shits about to go down the timers gone red :O

tbh i dont think anyone cares that mw3 is coming out this year, people have got bored
Posted by Lesovikk1 on 28 February 11 at 8:35pm

Looks like we got punked guys, the site isnt real. Its a fan based site for a fan made game:

http://callofduty.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:N7/Modern_Warfare_3_rumour_is_a_hoax_but_still_Call_of_Duty_related
Posted by Dexternation on 01 March 11 at 1:36am

Can they not just do a remake of cod4 I mean it’s the game that prety much launched the fanchise and in my eyes is still the best it’s just a shame you can’t get Any servers anymore :’/
Posted by Splinter on 01 March 11 at 3:28am

idk if this cod is gon be dat good as da last ones
Posted by kdjskdjksd on 02 March 11 at 12:43am

fakers this is all fake
FRAUD
FRAUD
FRAUD
FRAUD
FRAUD
Posted by t3h sourcey on 02 March 11 at 9:07am

I don’t really care if it’s MW3 or not.It’s presented so well that it triggered my curiosity and has my attention.I’d like to see what’s on the website after it’s revealed.
Posted by anonymous on 02 March 11 at 3:51pm

http://www.sledgehammergames.com/games

findmakarov.com is crashed