Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 evidence grows

Call of Duty: Black Ops may be getting a sequel this year, if online retailer Amazon is to be believed. The site's French arm put up a product page for "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2," before pulling the page down. That's when things reportedly started to heat up between Activision and the French media.

French site GameBlog (via GameSpot) reports that the after publishing news of the leaked site, Activision contacted the blog requesting the story be pulled. When GameBlog refused, Activision disinvited the site from a preview event for Transformers: Fall of Cybertron and supposedly canceled advertising. This doesn't confirm the news, of course.

Still, a sequel to Black Ops certainly makes sense. Before the juggernaut that is Modern Warfare 3 trumped its early records, Black Ops was Activision's most successful Call of Duty title. In fact, it called the game the best-selling game of all time in terms of dollars generated. Activision also recently reacquired the Black Ops 2 domain.

Joystiq also discovered a LinkedIn profile referencing development on Black Ops 2.

A sequel to Black Ops seems very likely, but it would be at odds with Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg's claim that this year's Call of Duty would bring "meaningful innovation to the franchise." Call of Duty Elite 2.0 will be built into this whatever Call of Duty 2012 turns out to be.

Shacknews has contacted Activision regarding the report, and will update as more information becomes available.