Former Sledgehammer GM: People Don't Realize How Much Work Goes into Call of Duty Games - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 05 August 2021 / 1,483 Views
Former Sledgehammer Games general manager Glen Schofield, who worked on the Call of Duty games Modern Warfare 3, Advanced Warfare and WWII, in an interview with in the latest issue of Edge (and transcribed by VideoGamesChronicle) said that people don't realize how much work goes into developing Call of Duty game.
"People nowadays [think] a Call of Duty is… you know, just put it through the grinder and another one will come out," Schofield said. "They don’t realize how much work goes into making a Call of Duty game. There’s just a ton of research.
"You’re working with experts – I studied World War Two for three years. I worked with historians. I spent eight days in a van in Europe going to all the places that were going to be in the game. I shot different old weapons. All of these things that you have to do when you’re working on a Call of Duty game."
Schofield said that a lot of research was even required for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare as the team worked with Navy SEALS and Delta Force.
"And, you know, to become an expert – we worked with Navy SEALS and Delta Force people to learn [the] tactics and techniques and get them into the game, right? You had to learn about the Special Forces from different countries like England and France and Spain and Italy and all that, because they were all in the game. So, a lot of learning, constantly reading, constantly watching videos and constantly working with experts."
Schofield also discussed the competition between the three main developers for the Call of Duty franchise - Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward and Treyarch.
"Was there internal competition? No doubt, no doubt," he said.
"It’s weird, because you really rooted for each studio because you needed and wanted every Call of Duty to do well. But you always wanted to get a higher score. You wanted to achieve more sales if you could. So yeah, we pushed each other, we really did.
“But then again, we would also help each other out – like, in between, we would go help out Black Ops a little bit. We might take on a level or take on a few objects and things like that – vehicles and things. We were this sort of Call of Duty brotherhood. There was a quiet competition going on, but you helped advance the next game as much as you could."
Activision has yet to officially unveil 2021's Call of Duty game. Reports are it will be called Call of Duty: Vanguard and release in November for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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I don't think he's wrong but they still need to put a lot more work into the gameplay as it's gotten extremely stale.
Is that the amount of time put into actual game development or microtransactions.
Lack of innovation,
Lack of 4 player split screen recently haha
Mw2019 black ops coldwar only 2 player,
Modern warfare 2019 had that oomph factor but now it's back to copy and pasting I guess haha.
The amount of effort doesn't change the fact gameplay is much the same year after year.
I do realize, 3 very big teams cycling it to release yearly. Still doesnt mean there is much creativity on it. Cant complain since I`m not into MP, not much into FPS but well I played 3 titles on PS+ and did like them.
Cry me a river, it's the same shit nearly every year. I really don't want to hear any sort of shit coming out of any manager's hole in regards to how much work goes into something, then that something ending up being the same shit every time, getting seriously stale as a result.
The issue here is that COD doesnt really need to change because they mastered the genre decades ago. They do continue to ramp it up by changing the story dramatically however there isnt really much they can do without changing what already works. The question is why should they change it and would it still be COD if they do?
I honestly played through most of them until Infinite Warfare than stopped. Not because the gameplay was stale or old. I got over the series for many other reasons.
I think a lot of people don’t realise when they say it feels the same as always is that I kinda don’t want it to change as we have so many different shooters that feel different to each other n if they start changing it then it may feel like the competition. I guess all am trying to say is battlefield plays different to cod and fortnight plays different. N that’s how it should be so everyone has a style of play that suits them
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