There’s no denying it, Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been one of the best FPSs to hit consoles this generation. Although it didn’t add anything astoundingly new to the general premise of the FPS market, COD4 took what was already established and fine-tuned it to success, raising the bar on the franchise and providing a tough act to follow for Treyarch, the developers that would be handling the follow-up game for Activision.

Just in-time for the holiday season, Call of Duty: World at War is just about to hit store shelves and Treyarch is serving up some notice — they believe this year’s iteration of the franchise will top all the heavy hitters.

“There’s a lot of competition this year, but I feel very strongly we have the best shooter this Christmas,” Treyarch’s senior producer Noah Heller insists. Heller backs his statements up with the facts that COD4 topped the holiday charts last year, and is still the most played game on Xbox LIVE.

“I’m looking forward to Gears of War, Far Cry and Resistance 2, and I’m sure they will be great games, but I am confident the consumer will come back to Call of Duty,” he says.

All bravado and confidence aside, Heller knows that following-up Call of Duty 4 will be a pretty tall order to fill. He states: “Along with the ‘why are you returning to WWII?’ questions, we’ve been asked ‘how are you possibly going to follow up COD4?’ And the answer to that question was not to focus on the previous game, But to make our own game on our own merits and our own strengths, and show people what we can do.”

We certainly hope final product ends up being a good game, and while it’s been beaten to death, I just have to say it again: World War II… Really?!

At least there’s nazi zombies this time.