In Call of Duty 2017, “Traditional Combat Will Once Again Take Center Stage”

With Activision saying yesterday that Call of Duty 2017 would take the series “back to its roots,” Sledgehammer Games (Advanced Warfare) officially confirmed themselves as the developer:

We’re honored & excited to bring this year’s @Callofduty to fans everywhere! It’s our biggest achievement as game makers. Much more to come.

Studio co-founder Glen Schofield said, “Is it official? Can I talk yet? not quite yet, but we listened. We r so psyched about our game & honored to work on such a great franchise.” Fellow co-founder Michael Condrey added, “So proud of the work this team has been doing for the past 2+ years. We can’t wait to share more!”

Call of Duty 2017 likely won’t be unveiled until April or May, but during the Activision Blizzard earnings call yesterday, COO Thomas Tippl offered one detail. “In 2017, Activision will take Call of Duty back to its roots, and traditional combat will once again take center stage,” he said. “This is what our dedicated community of Call of Duty players and Sledgehammer Games, who has been developing this year’s title, are the most excited about.”

After saying Infinite Warfare had great gameplay innovations, but also a setting that didn’t appeal to everybody, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg talked about how excited he is about Sledgehammer’s title, which was green-lit two years ago:

The good news is, is that I’m excited to say that in 2017 we think we have this balance in perfect harmony with a game that our teams are incredibly passionate about, with a lot of great innovations, but that also has the traditional combat that we know our fans are going to love.

The game is being made by Sledgehammer, as Thomas mentioned. They’re a proven team that’s passionate about this title. We green-lit it over two years ago now, and they’ve been hard at work at it ever since, and we can’t wait to unveil it to the world soon. And without discussing too much about what else we’ve got in the Call of Duty pipeline, I can also tell you that we’re confident our fans are going to love those games as well, and we’ve never be more excited either creatively or commercially about our three-year Call of Duty slate.

Activision’s three-year development cycle for Call of Duty began in 2014 with Sledgehammer’s Advanced Warfare, then continued with Treyarch’s Black Ops 3 in 2015 and Infinity Ward’s Infinite Warfare in 2016.

Because they’re so enthusiastic about Call of Duty going back to its roots, Activision is “guiding it up in Q4 versus last year’s Q4 performance.”

[Source: Seeking Alpha, Sledgehammer Games, Glen Schofield, Michael Condrey; Screenshot is from Advanced Warfare]

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