Call of Duty 9

After the reorganization of Infinity Ward in 2010, Activision announced that Sledgehammer Studios was working on an action/adventure installment of the Call of Duty. After that time, it’s been very quiet about the action/adventure development of COD and has been working on getting Call of Duty – Modern Warfare 3 ready for market.

Well, it appears that the original mandate for Sledgehammer Games hasn’t been entirely forgotten. According to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, “[Sledgehammer Studios] were originally working on an extension of the Call of Duty franchise into an action/adventure genre and that’s a game I still want to play. That’s a supreme, incredible group doing that.” He went on to say that this team is currently 100% focused on working on Modern Warfare 3. This statement doesn’t close the door on the possibility of a Call of Duty title in the action/adventure genre. Maybe it should go by the name of Call of Duty 9 if we are to follow all the COD releases in numeric order. Still, this would be quite a big undertaking since the Call of Duty brand is very much wedded to the first person shooter game genre. Besides venturing away from its niche/genre, another challenge would be when when to release this game – does it get snuck in between the alternating annual releases of Call of Duty games between Treyarch and Infinity Ward?

Screenshot of Call of Duty 2 (Credit: flickr.CharlieNZ)

Hirshberg went on to say that “it remains to be seen” whether the action/adventure direction for the Call of Duty brand is the right direction to take. While its annual take continues to increase, and it is the biggest selling gaming title, there might be issues of brand dilution considering how synonymous the brand “Call of Duty” is to first person shooters. It is going to be definitely an interesting time ahead for this genre.