Following the dismissal of Infinity Ward studio heads Vince Zampella and Jason West, Activision has officially announced a new Call of Duty title to be developed by Sledgehammer Games. In addition, they have formed a new business unit dedicated to publishing an annual Call of Duty game.
Sledgehammer is being lead by Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, both of whom worked on Dead Space, and their new game will “extend the franchise into the action-adventure genre.” And while this is far from confirmed, we’re hearing that it might be the long-rumored “Call of Duty in space.” In the meantime, 1UP’s sources tell us that Infinity Ward will continue handling the recently announced Modern Warfare 2 map packs as well as future downloadable content, though plans beyond that are unclear.
Earlier today, Activision met with the studio leads and individual departments at Infinity Ward. Our sources within the studio tell us that Activision has confirmed they will still be receiving “compensation for royalties and such,” referring to rumors that the studio hadn’t yet been compensated for Modern Warfare 2.
Our source also told us that Zampella and West are being “demonized” by Activision, which jives with reports that the publisher has filed paperwork with the SEC alleging “breaches of contract and insubordination by two members at Infinity Ward.”
BingeGamer has reported that Zampella and West were shopping a new IP with a rival publisher, and indeed our source told us that the team was “supposed to know what our next IP would be on Monday.” Instead, he said, “we found a bunch of bouncers at our doors.”
Activision also wanted Modern Warfare 3 from Infinity Ward, our source told us, but that the team “wasn’t too thrilled about that idea.”
For the moment, Activision publishing CTO Steve Pearce and head of production Steve Akrich have been placed in charge of the studio. However, the studio will be hiring from within to fill the positions vacated by Zampella and West. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:44 am
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