It should not come as a surprise that Activision is already mentioning their upcoming Call of Duty game. As you know, a new COD title is released every year with development cycles rotating between three main studios: Infinity Ward, Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. What’s a tad more surprising though is the announcement that the next installment is getting the franchise “back to its roots”.
What does this mean? Bluntly, that the space odyssey of Infinite Warfare did not work as planned and Activision wants to change course. Returning, if seems, to more traditional settings with a more classical combat approach. Even if Infinite Warfare came to be top-selling console game last year, Activision has always been rather honest about its performance. We know, for instance, that sales did not match at all the ones obtained by Call of Duty: Black Ops III last year.
Call of Duty 2017: Going Back to the Roots
There are different reasons to explain this decline and we could indulge in some (fanatical) discussion over here. In a conference call with investors, Activision’s Chief Operating Officer Thomas Tippl gave his two cents on the subject. First, Infinite Warfare was a new sub-series, but was unable to resonate as hard as the Black Ops saga. “It’s clear that, for a portion of our audience, the space setting just didn’t resonate,” said Tippl. He also acknowledged the importance of granting the dev team with the freedom of developing the ideas they cared about.
Therefore, Activision hopes that going back to a more traditional setting will satisfy their “dedicated community”. It’s still unknown whether we’ll go really back in time or just find ourselves amidst a modern warfare conflict once again. Up until now, Sledgehammer has developed Advanced Warfare and co-developed Modern Warfare 3, along with Infinity Ward, and they are next in line in the cycle. That could give us some hints. If 2017 follows the teasing trajectory of last years, we should not wait that much to start getting the first glimpses of the new game.
How do you feel about this, Fanatics? Did you enjoy Infinite Warfare more than other games? Or are you a COD player who digs the old combat styles? Let us know in the comment section!
[Source: IGN]
