All Articles: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

We’ve been expecting the hammer to fall since the beginning of the year, but the team at Sledgehammer Games has finally revealed the fate of the Call of Duty “action-adventure” game: it’s been canceled.

Speaking to GameSpot, Sledgehammer co-founders Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield said their team put about six months worth of work into the game before Activision pulled the plug. And, as we all know, after that plug hit the ground, Sledgehammer was invited to help Infinity Ward put the finising touches on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

“We had a prototype together that was pretty compelling, and it looked really good,” Condrey said. “[But], the opportunity to work on the biggest thing in the industry with Infinity Ward, that’s demonstrated that they know how to do exceptional software, was just an opportunity we couldn’t [pass up].”

Activision has never been one to pass up a big payday, so presumably they’ll revisit the Call of Duty spinoff idea someday.

Activision has unleashed the first trailer for Spec Ops Survival Mode in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

You know the drill by now: survive wave after wave of enemy attacks for as long as you can. It’s like being a Cincinnati Bengals fan, only less depressing.

If you balked at the $150 price tag Activision put on a ticket to the Call of Duty XP expo, perhaps this will change your mind. In addition to admittance to the show, your ticket can be used to obtain a free copy of the Hardened Edition of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 when it’s released on November 8. Between a free copy of MW3 and donating every cent of the Call of Duty XP ticket price to charity, Activision has officially moved their corporate karma one tick closer to the “Not Evil” side.

According to Joystiq, there will be plenty of other perks for Call of Duty XP attendees as well. Those that buy a ticket to the September 2-3 show will receive a sneak peek at a Call of Duty comedy series created by Jason Bateman and Will Arnett’s production company Dumbdumb. This series is being produced as a bonus for Call of Duty Elite members in addition to a “Modern Warfare-inspired live-action short” by We Can Pretend, the production company behind the awesome “Find Makarov” film.

Yup, definitely not evil.

One of the many controversies surrounding Modern Warfare 2 was that in multiplayer, teammates’ names appear over their heads in green while enemy names appear in red. If you’re color blind, this essentially means you’re screwed, doubly so if you enjoy Hardcore game modes (unless of course you like team-killing). As part of the “let’s appease everyone Infinity Ward drove away” initiative in Call of Duty: Black Ops, Treyarch included a color blind option for such players.

The trend continues, as the Sledgehammer blog confirms the feature returns in Modern Warfare 3. In response to a question from Nick, a color blind fan, Sledgehammer Vice President and COO writes, “start honing your MP skills, Nick. You won’t be able blame your red-green deficiency for all that friendly-fire come November 8th.”

Accessibility in gaming is a big new initiative; it’s good to see the bigger names in gaming getting with the program.