The Call of Duty franchise has made $10 billion alone for Activision, and the video game giant’s newest product — Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare — had some help from a celebrity prior to being released Nov. 3 in an innovative new approach to marketing the game.

Starting in May with small snippets of promotional clips, the campaign began to sequentially unveil more information as time passed. An audio recording of Kevin Spacey’s ominous voice surfaced and the campaign spread like fire throughout all major media outlets. Soon, Spacey was animated and thrown into the game’s storyline as a high-level mercenary industry leader.

The first spot ad displays Spacey addressing an army of mercenaries and features all of the futuristic warfare concepts that are incorporated into the game. From then on, inside looks are provided and more gameplay shots are included to show the viewer what it will be like with the controller in their hand. Explosions, assassinations, helicopter jumps, and various other aspects of the new style of combat presented in the game flood the new ads.

Marketing efforts were ramped up in the weeks before the release date. Activision entered partnerships with affiliates such as VICE, the documentary film company in the process of developing a project focused around the mercenary industry that forms that main content in the new game. These widespread influences, combined with the innovative marketing approach overall, has helped the Call of Duty brand revolutionize itself.

Activision employees within the marketing division have claimed to approach each new project as a comeback of sorts, never being satisfied with the current product and always finding ways to take a drastic leap forward. It seems that this approach has brought positive outcomes to Activision with respect to the Call of Duty brand and they will continue to incorporate different ways to improve moving forward.