A report on the LA Times blog “Company Man” claims to have a few details on the next Call of Duty game. Citing “people familiar with the situation,” the blog reveals that Activision will release the Infinity Ward-developed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 this November.
But it appears that Infinity Ward wasn’t able to complete the game on their own.
The LA Times article states that due to the defection of company founders Jason West and Vince Zampella (along with the majority of the IW staff) Activision had to call in the team from the newly-formed Sledgehammer Games. The megapublisher also had to call on Raven Software to help with the multiplayer portion. Although this part of the tale was more-or-less confirmed by a job opening at Raven a few weeks ago.
This shifting of resources has seemingly caused a “domino effect” among Activision’s internal studios. The newspaper claims that Sledgehammer has had to postpone their Call of Duty spin-off that was previously scheduled for a 2011 release.
It all sounds plausible enough, but we won’t know for sure until Activision officially announces the title and developer of the next Call of Duty game, which will definitely be released this November.
