Kevin Spacey stars in ‘Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare’: Are video games the next frontier for Hollywood?

Kevin Spacey is set to headline “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare,” the next video game in first-person shooter franchise, with the trailer for the game released today.

Little is known about Spacey’s “Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare” character, other than the fact that he plays the game’s primary antagonist, the head of a rogue private military company. The scenery-chewing narration Spacey provides in the trailer is reminiscent of the monologues his “House of Cards” character Frank Underwood might spout ("Democracy is not what these people need. Hell, it's not even what they want") --minus the Southern drawl, of course.

One thing is clear, though: The actor's presence in the game gives the game a touch of class it might not otherwise have (he has two Oscars, people! Two!).

Of course, this isn't the first time big-time movie stars have lent their talents to a video game.

Ellen Page (“Inception”) and Willem Dafoe (“Spider-Man”) made headlines in 2013 for lending their talents to the French video game “Beyond: Two Souls.” So why did Page, an Oscar nominee herself, decide to star in a game?

“I had no kind of idea what it meant to be in a video game, but then I looked at the material and was moved by the story and so excited that this female protagonist was going to exist,” Page told Comingsoon.net at the time. “I met [the director] and was so intrigued by his intention with this and his intention with creating games that are a little more emotionally complex in regards to story telling. There was just no hesitation, I was like ‘Yeah I want to do this, even though I have no clue what I'm getting myself into.’”

Although he didn’t lend his likeness to the game, Kiefer Sutherland recently took over one of the most famous roles in all of video games: Snake in Konami’s “Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes.” Thanks to performance capture technology (similar to the tech used to bring characters like "The Hobbit's" Gollum to life), Sutherland managed to make the iconic role his own. He is set to reprise the role again for the upcoming sequel "Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain".

Once upon a time, video games roles were just like any other voice acting gig: a quick job and a quick buck. But as games have become more realistic and film-like, you finally have actors who are recognizing games as the exciting and emerging field that it is. Performance capture technology and stunning digital likenesses mean that actors can now more fully apply their craft to games.

However, we're unlikely to see film stars moving en masse to video games quite yet, because most video game characters aren't as fully realized as the ones they get to play in movies and television. Right now, video game roles are primarily one-sided affairs, in which the actor is mostly talking to a silent player -- there's no other performer to feed off of. Sure, it's fun for actor's to ham it up in villain role or a stock hero part, but that doesn't hold much appeal for many in the long run.

Games will only start attracting more top-tier acting talent when the medium starts tackling stories that don't involve a series a Michael Bay-style action set pieces or killing wave after wave of baddies. In the meantime, though, Spacey does look like he's having a lot of fun in "Call of Duty."