Call of Duty teaser site appears to show Ghost's mask

Call of Duty publisher Activision opened a teaser site for the next entry in the franchise today — which is reportedly titled Call of Duty: Ghosts — and it appears to be revealing an image of Ghost, an important side character in the Modern Warfare sub-series.

Leaked retailer listings and box art suggest this year's game is titled Call of Duty: Ghosts and is being made by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows PC and Wii U. Activision has yet to officially announce the next Call of Duty title, although Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said during the company's most recent earnings call that it plans to launch the game in the fourth quarter of 2013 and expects it to perform worse than 2012's Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

The teaser site asks fans to link their Facebook or Twitter account to the page and send out a Call of Duty-related message on those services. In turn, a mosaic on the site will gradually be filled in with the linked users' Facebook and Twitter avatars to reveal an image, which at this stage resembles the skull mask worn by the character Ghost.

Lt. Simon "Ghost" Riley was an operator in the British Special Air Service who appeared in the Infinity Ward-developed game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009), as well as Wildstorm Productions' comic book tie-in series, Modern Warfare 2: Ghost (2009). The Cockney-accented Ghost was killed in the mission "Loose Ends" in a betrayal by General Shepherd of the U.S. Army, who had been a support character to that point.

According to a GameStop in-store display provided to IGN, Activision will announce the game May 1.