New Call of Duty Devs

[Ares]

New Call of Duty Devs Aim to “Broaden the Audience”
04/19/2010 Written by Zak Islam

When a new Call of Duty was announced to be hitting later this year, it was certainly a surprise as to who would be developing it. So far during this generation of consoles, the Call of Duty series has had annual releases, alternating between developers Treyarch (COD3, COD: World at War) and Infinity Ward (COD4: Modern Warfare and MW2), however, Sledgehammer Games will take the reigns of the next installment in the COD series. Despite having some massive shoes to fill, Sledgehammer seeks to take the franchise to new heights even claiming the title “will broaden the audience”.
Activision COO Thomas Tippi spoke to LA Times, where he revealed that the company will bring a new take into the Call of Duty series.

Today, we have three studios working on Call of Duty. We have Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Then we have Treyarch, which will be releasing a Call of Duty game in the fall of 2010. Treyarch also developed Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty 3.
And, most recently, we’ve added Sledgehammer in the Bay Area. We haven’t yet announced the content of their game, but it’s going to be an innovative take that will further broaden the audience for Call of Duty.

Tippi explains the current position about the West and Zampella saga:

We treat our developers extremely well. We have an independent studio model that provides them a lot of creative freedom while we take care of the back office stuff so they can focus on making games. If their games are successful, they are compensated better here than anywhere else. We’ve been paying our talent millions of dollars for their work. Our setup provides a win-win opportunity. We ensure your work will reach a wide audience. Therefore, we have attracted, and we will continue to attract, the top talent in this industry.

Sledgehammer Games Call of Duty is categorized under the action-adventure genre, rather than the FPS genre.



Source: PlayStation LifeStyle

 

[Nugu]

Sledgehammer Games Call of Duty is categorized under the action-adventure genre, rather than the FPS genre.

Uncharted Warfare 3: Soap's Fortune

 

[j_garcia]

They did Dead Space, not Uncharted

 

[Serj22]

If they plan to "broaden" the experience further, I hope that doesn't mean "Call of Duty, Future Warfare." I would not accept a COD with lasers and homing bullets or some garbage like that. I would, however, accept a COD WWI game or something like that.

 

[Nugu]

They did Dead Space, not Uncharted

DS is considered a sci-fi shooter so I guess I figured using the most well known Action Adv would work. I was up around 30 hours straight at that point so I don't really know what I was thinking.

Anyways, really? Broaden CoD's audience? Next thing you'll know they'll try to add RPG to CoD with turn based fighting.

 

[j_garcia]

I posted something about this previously; Activision said this series would likely change its target audience and I believe this was originally planned to be a spin-off. With those top guys leaving though, this one will become the next game instead. Unfortunately, I think that means we will see some changes that make it more like other games and less like MW.

I actually liked Dead Space, it was different and fun but a little slow.

 

[SopRage]

Dead Space was sweet, but as far as I'm concerned Call of Duty is DOA until Sledgehammer proves to me otherwise. The departure of the bulk of Infinity Ward was the death knell as far as I'm concerned.

The Treyarch CODs (Call of Duty 3 and World at War) are, not coincidentally, markedly inferior. The same can be said of Medal of Honor series after Infinity Ward's work on the original. I'm not convinced it'll be much different with Sledgehammer.

The parallels to Guitar Hero after Harmonix's departure are pretty clear. Activision will continue to milk a franchise whose creative tallent have moved on for as long as fiscally possible.

I'm far more interested in what Respawn Studios (which is shaping up to be the new Infinity Ward under a different name) has planned.