Activision has announced that the widely popular Call of Duty franchise is to return, and will be making a comeback to the PS2 and Wii after a two-year hiatus.

The new installment is planned for multi-platform release before the end of Activision's 2009 fiscal year, which ends 31st March 2009.

Speaking of the new game, Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith said that the setting of the series would be shifted in the next installment.

"We'll bring the intensity of the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare title to a new military theatre to engage our significantly larger user base which nearly doubled last year as new users came into the franchise," said Griffiths.

"We'll launch on all four platforms we've participated on in fiscal [year] 2008," he added (referring to Call of Duty 4, which sold over 7 million units worldwide on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Nintendo DS in 2007). "We'll [also] launch on the PS2 and the Wii."

Activision has a right to be a bit chuffed with itself at the moment. All this was announced at the same time as it proclaimed itself as the top publisher in the US in terms of console and handheld software dollars.

It made $2.9 billion in revenue during its 2008 fiscal year, one of its crucial titles helping to make that being Call of Duty 4.

Activision is no doubt hoping for the same sort of success from Call of Duty 5.

>> Via - Gamespot