Call of Duty Now a Three Developer Series – Sledgehammer Responsible for COD 2014

Activision Blizzard has announced today as part of their 2013 Q4 report that one of their largest franchises “Call of Duty” will now be developed in three year cycles coming from 3 different developers. Currently COD has been getting released from two alternating developers, Treyarch who was responsible for World at War and Black Ops 1/2, and Infinity Ward which was responsible for Modern Warfares 1-3 and most recently Ghosts, though several team members left after MW2 while 3 and ghosts were co developed with Sledgehammer Games.

Well as of now Sledgehammer games has graduated to being in control of its own COD series, and will be responsible for the release later this year. Treyarch and a reformed Infinity Ward will continue their current series Black ops and Ghosts, meaning that each game within the series will now have a development time of 3 years rather than 2. This decision will hopefully bring a greater amount of innovation and changes within each series, which in some Gamer’s opinions have begun to grow stale.

Treyarch and Infinity Ward have had their own special game modes as signatures, namely Zombies, Spec Ops, and most recently Extinction, so it’ll be interesting to see if Sledgehammer Games’ solo effort will result in something else entirely new, though there is of course the risk that what they make may simply be a spin off of their efforts with Infinity Ward on MW3 and Ghosts. The COD franchise has been wildly popular and successful despite having a number of dissenters, and with more time being spent on each game there will hopefully be some new directions for the series to change minds.

Source: Joystiq