New Call of Duty Devs Aim to “Broaden the Audience”

When a new Call of Duty was announced to be hitting later this year, it was certainly a surprise as to who would be developing it. So far during this generation of consoles, the Call of Duty series has had annual releases, alternating between developers Treyarch (COD3, COD: World at War) and Infinity Ward (COD4: Modern Warfare and MW2), however, Sledgehammer Games will take the reigns of the next installment in the COD series.  Despite having some massive shoes to fill, Sledgehammer seeks to take the franchise to new heights even claiming the title “will broaden the audience”.

Activision COO Thomas Tippi spoke to LA Times, where he revealed that the company will bring a new take into the Call of Duty series.

Today, we have three studios working on Call of Duty. We have Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Then we have Treyarch, which will be releasing a Call of Duty game in the fall of 2010. Treyarch also developed Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty 3.

And, most recently, we’ve added Sledgehammer in the Bay Area. We haven’t yet announced the content of their game, but it’s going to be an innovative take that will further broaden the audience for Call of Duty.

Tippi explains the current position about the West and Zampella saga:

We treat our developers extremely well. We have an independent studio model that provides them a lot of creative freedom while we take care of the back office stuff so they can focus on making games. If their games are successful, they are compensated better here than anywhere else. We’ve been paying our talent millions of dollars for their work. Our setup provides a win-win opportunity. We ensure your work will reach a wide audience. Therefore, we have attracted, and we will continue to attract, the top talent in this industry.

Sledgehammer Games Call of Duty is categorized under the action-adventure genre, rather than the FPS genre.

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