Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 unveiling next month?

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 may finally see an official announcement next month, as Kotaku today reported on a poster from "a retail source" that suggests an announcement for the first-person shooter is imminent.

The ad features a close-up but blurred image of a shadowy figure holding a gun, the date "05/02/12," and the tagline "Return for Debriefing." Along the bottom of the poster are the logos of Activision and Treyarch, as well as an Entertainment Software Rating Board logo indicating the game being advertised has not yet been rated.

A Black Ops sequel would be less than surprising at this point. The game has already been spotted on French and Spanish retailer websites, and an employee at a contract art studio listed work for Black Ops 2 on his resume.

Call of Duty: Black Ops remains the most successful Call of Duty game to date, selling more than 25 million copies through August 2011. Last year's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 initially sold at a faster pace than its predecessor, but failed to make the NPD Group's Top 10 list in March, its fifth month of release. In contrast, Black Ops had become the best-selling game of all time in the US by the March following its debut and cracked the NPD Top 10 for 11 straight months.

Treyarch has a lengthy history with the first-person shooter series, having developed 2010's Call of Duty: Black Ops and 2008's Call of Duty: World at War, as well as an assortment of map packs and side projects for the franchise. It hasn't shipped a game outside of the Call of Duty franchise since 2008's James Bond game, Quantum of Solace.