The Call of Duty brand may not seem like one destined for the action adventure genre, but Glen Schofield and his team at Sledgehammer Games were brought on board at Activision to take the seminal shooter in just that direction. In the wake of the Infinity Ward controversy however, it appears some sacrifices had to have been made. As part of a larger interview with CVG, Schofield said the team was given the option to either continue work on the CoD spin-off project, or help the recovering Infinity Ward finish Modern Warfare 3.
The decision, it turns out, was an easy one. The action-adventure Call of Duty – while boasting some unique and interesting gameplay elements – came across as too niche for the franchise’s demographic, according to Schofield.
“We’ll probably cancel it,” Schofield explained, “They gave us the choice of: Do you want to work on Modern Warfare 3 or do you want to continue working on this? And we really liked that. We liked what we were doing. It’s third person, probably set at a time that might have ‘niched’ it too much. I bet that if we had kept going, within a month or two, I probably would have switched the time period but kept the gameplay. It had some really cool stuff.”
Even with Modern Warfare 3 having gone gold, it looks like Sledgehammer’s niche foray into the CoD license will be abandoned. The team is looking forward to working on its next project solo, although what Activision brand (if any) the game will fall under remains to be seen.
“I think that we will work alone on our next project,” he said. “This game has allowed both Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games to hire, and we hired really strong teams, both of us. We needed to come together on this one, but since then we’ve both grown; we’re both over 100 people now.”
“Initially, we weren’t fully functional because we had to learn a new engine. Now we have, I think the best thing that could happen for Activision would be for us to both go off and make our own game. Whether that’s a Call of Duty game or not is up in the air. I plan to continue working on Call of Duty.”
Would you have liked to have seen some genre experimentation from Call of Duty? And, given Activision’s brand catalog, what franchise would you like to Sledgehammer tackle? Give us your thoughts in the comments section!
Thats Activision for you.