OREANDA-NEWS. August 06, 2015. Its launches eclipse Hollywood premieres. Its fans gather by the thousands in arenas to watch their favorite players compete. More than 100 million people have fired up some version of this game. It is the blockbuster gaming juggernaut that is the Call of Duty franchise.

Every Call of Duty launch is big. That’s why I’m so excited about NVIDIA’s collaboration with Activision around GeForce GPUs and Treyarch’s highly anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops III at Gamescom this week in Cologne, Germany.

NVIDIA’s booth C40/B41, in Hall 8, will offer the world’s first chance to play Call of Duty: Black Ops III multiplayer on the PC. As an added bonus, every gamer that takes a turn will get a beta key so they can join the Call of Duty: Black Ops III beta program. They’ll be able to take part in the testing and provide feedback that will shape the final game.

At Gamescom, Call of Duty: Black Ops III will be presented on glorious 4K panels powered by a pair of NVIDIA GeForce TITAN X GPUs in SLI mode.

As Treyarch optimizes Call of Duty: Black Ops III for PC gamers, NVIDIA will support engineering and visual effects efforts with code, and help integrate some of our state-of-the art special effects into the upcoming title.

This is a big deal, in every sense. The last chapter in the Black Ops series was the biggest entertainment launch of its year and became the most played online game of the last generation.

But Call of Duty is more than just big. The franchise consistently delivers games that are engaging and fun. They’re loaded with great campaign modes, endlessly replayable multiplayer modes and innovative zombie modes.

And they just happen to be in my favorite game genre, the first-person shooter.