Treyarch's last Call of Duty game -- 2010's excellent Black Ops -- marked a few shifts for the series. Not only did it embrace storytelling in a significant way and implement many entertaining additions in multiplayer, but it also delivered a new setting: the Cold War, plus Vietnam and other surrounding events. As such, it was something of a surprise to see Black Ops II vault decades into the future, with a chunk of the action taking place in 2025. Why push the series so far ahead while still calling it Black Ops?

"When we created the first Black Ops, setting the game in a new timeframe for the studio really opened up a lot of creativity within the studio, in terms of all the weapons and technology that translate to new gameplay. We really wanted that for this next game," explains studio head, Mark Lamia. "That worked out so great in Black Ops, so for Black Ops II, leveraging the fiction of that time period allowed us to come up with a ton of new gameplay."

Facilitating that decision is what Lamia describes as an open-ended timeframe for Black Ops, the sort of off-the-record, secret missions that defined the original game. "We wanted to tell this pretty epic, time-spanning narrative," he says. "People say, 'Wasn't Black Ops this time period?' Well, it's not a World War II game, it's not a modern game, and it's not even a future game. It's Black Ops."

While the future setting may be the public face of Call of Duty: Black Ops II's marketing efforts, it's not the only scenario you'll encounter in the campaign. As Lamia hints, the sequel actually picks up in the years following the original thanks to flashback missions starring familiar leads like David Mason and Frank Woods, which intertwine with the 2025-set events featuring Mason's son, Alex. What that approach allows Treyarch to do is build out a tale that spans multiple eras, all while detailing the rise and motivations of core antagonist Raul Menendez.

For many, though, the bigger overall impact of the future setting is sure to be felt in the array of new weapons, gear, and automated allies seen in the game. Drones – both aerial and ground-based – are a key component of both the action and the fiction, with swarms of tiny, flying gunships providing new gameplay opportunities above eye level. "Having some of these advanced robotics and drones to fight is new A.I. to play against, which means players can come up with new strategies and use some of this new technology to fight against them," says Lamia.

Indeed, you'll also take control of drones at a few points. Most notably, you’ll do so in the campaign's new Strike Force missions, which implement real-time strategy elements within less-linear timed stages. Both the aerial and walking drones can be freely commanded in these stages, though the aerial drones also come into play as a multiplayer score streak, while the more traditional campaign missions have occasional moments where you can direct the flying fighters towards enemies.

Drones are a significant addition to the Call of Duty formula, but they're just a sample of the futuristic tech seen in Black Ops II. Other fresh sights include a sniper rifle with a charged shot that can blast through walls, which when paired with the Millimeter Wave Scanner attachment – which can scope out heat signatures beyond structures – proves an incredibly lethal firearm. You'll also don specialized gloves in the campaign that help you scale nose-bleed cliffs with ease, as well as soar through the air in specialized wing suits.

Nailing a further-off future setting without losing a believable military feel proved an essential focus point for the team. "We didn't want to turn this into a sci-fi game," admits Lamia, who says constant iteration was needed to either pull things back from past the point of believability, or even occasionally push things further when the initial pass seemed too conservative. "We did a lot of research into future tech and to where future robotics are going."

Assisting them in that pursuit was consultant Peter Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute think tank and author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. His guidance helped shape some of the ideas for the game, but Treyarch's mandate was gameplay first – and as such, it deviated in some respects from what seemed realistic or plausible.

For example, an earlier version of the CLAW (Cognitive Land Assault Weapon) drone was leaner and more agile, but it didn't fit right. "The reality may have been that it was an even more accurate representation, but it didn't feel that way in context of the game that we are making," explains Lamia. "There were things that [...] out of the gate played and looked cool, but felt like it might be feeling too far in the future, or [...] too sci-fi. Nobody knows what things are going to be like in the next 13 years, but we have a gut feeling about it."

Ultimately, though, much as pushing the franchise into a new era created a lot more creative work for the team, Lamia wouldn't have it any other way. "In the past, there's a very good template for what has existed, and then we try to bring that to life through the game and create gameplay around it. In the future, you can head in all kinds of different directions," he says of the setting. "It was really inspiring, and the team really had a desire to do entirely new things within the franchise. I think this near-future setting was a great creative bed for that."

Andrew Hayward is a freelancer for Official Xbox Magazine and other major outlets like Polygon, TechRadar, Edge, GamesRadar, Geek Magazine, Clutter, and Tap!. He's also the Games Editor for Mac|Life and can be found on Twitter @Ahaywa.