Leaks suggest next Call of Duty Black Ops will head to the Gulf War

While leaks sometimes come from mysterious sources, it’s always refreshing when the font of information turns out to have been an oversight from the developers themselves.

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That seems to be the case for the next Call of Duty Black Ops, which has seemingly had a bunch of details and now-deleted images leak after files were mistakenly included in the early version of Warzone Mobile that’s being tested.

These also included a bunch of map loading screens and details around Modern Warfare 2, which arrives later this year, but more focus has gone to a few images that are purportedly from the next Black Ops game.

The pictures include glimpses of a Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk stealth bomber that online sleuths have worked out might indicate a time setting in the Gulf War, moving the franchise forward in time again after Cold War in 2020.

The Black Ops series is no stranger to moving around on a timeline, so it’s possible (or even likely) that we’ll also see other settings, but this is as concrete a look as we’ve got so far.

With the game widely reported to be getting a longer development cycle aiming at a 2024 release window, we will likely have to wait a long while before any of this is corroborated, though.