For almost a decade and a half, we’ve received a new Call of Duty (CoD) every year. The original game was released in 2003, then its first sequel was released in 2005. From there, fans have gotten a yearly dosage of first-person war time shooters. The original three titles all took us to the intense real-world horrors of World War II, but throughout the franchise, the CoD has been set in more modern and futuristic settings.

Earlier in the year, Activision claimed that they were taking the franchise “back to its roots.” Going back to the series’ roots could mean any number of things, but fans are confident that this means that this year’s title will take us back to the early 1940’s when the entire world was at war. To further back up that theory, some new images have surfaced that may or may not be legitimate, but definitely are focused on a World War II setting.

YouTuber TheFamilyVideoGamers recently uploaded a video to his channel, claiming that an anonymous fan sent him a handful of images that prove the WWII theory. In the video, he says that not only is the next CoD game based on the most widespread war in history, but the title of the next entry into the series is Call of Duty: WWII. The images shared look to be concepts for posters as well as Collector’s Edition steel book case designs. Check out the gallery below:

The sender of the images suggests that the images came “from somebody very close to the project over at Sledgehammer.” It is no secret that the CoD franchise is developed by a trio of development teams and published by Activision. The current cycle goes Treyarch, Infinity Ward, then Sledgehammer. This allows for all three teams to be working on seperate games at once and still pump out an annual release. Infinity Ward developed last year’s Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which did well in sales, but Activision was convinced that the game “didn’t resonate” with the fans as they had hoped. That would make this year’s release by Sledgehammer. While accurate, the cycle of developers is no secret, which still doesn’t prove the validity of the images.

With this year’s E3 approaching rather quickly, leaks and rumors are abuzz. Keep in mind that until an actual announcement is made, these are still just rumors. The “leaked” images could have been created by a master digital artist to troll CoD fans, then again, we may come to find that Sledgehammer games has a mole. Either way, we here at DFTG will keep you up to date as the story unfolds.

What are your thoughts on the Call of Duty franchise returning to the battlefields of World War II? Do you think this the success of EA DICE’s Battlefield 1 has pushed Activision back into historically driven games? Let us know in the comments section below, or head on over to our official Disqus Channel to chat about it with fellow DFTG readers as well as our staff. Be sure to follow us on Twitter to catch around the clock gaming and entertainment news coverage.