Infinity Ward, the development studio behind the Call of Duty franchise, may be moving away from Call of Duty and on to other projects. Activision, Infinity Ward's parent company, has decided to move the team onto bigger and better things. Vice President Dave Stohl told VG247, "I think that there’s a short- and long-term view on the whole thing," he added. "But I think we’re rebuilding a studio that can go off and build great new franchises in the future."
Infinity Ward has been in the spotlight recently since founders Jason West and Vince Zampella left the company because of disagreements with Activision. When they left, many of the Infinity Ward developers went with them. The Infinity Ward staff also brought a lawsuit against Activision alleging unpaid bonuses. They said that Activision was keeping back some of the promised royalties from Modern Warfare 2 as part of a plan to keep the staff at the studio to work on Modern Warfare 3. West and Zampella, along with the developers that left Activision, went to competitor Electronic Arts and started a new design studio named Respawn Entertainment.
Since the shake up, Infinity Ward has been focused on recruiting new talent. "Recruiting at Infinity Ward is not a problem. What we’re trying to do is say that Infinity Ward is a culture, it’s a way of doing things," said Stohl. While talking about the move to new franchises, he said that Infinity Ward has a strong "shooter philosophy," so while Call of Duty may become a franchise of the past, don't expect the studio to start crafting high fantasy role playing games and veer too far away from it's adrenaline soaked FPS roots any time soon.
22 Comments - Add comment