Call of Duty HQ

Below are some interviews we've had with the associated developers and producers of the Call of Duty franchise.

July 13, 2006 -- Phone Interview with Grant Collier

Well in an effort to squash some of the rumors that are scurrying about on the 'Net about the Call of Duty franchise: Call of Duty 2 expansions, Call of Duty 3, and Infinity Ward's future with their award-winning IP, I decided to give Grant Collier, President and CEO of Infinity Ward, a call today. While on the phone we discussed a number of topics pertaining to Call of Duty. Below is what I got.

I started by asking what he thought of Treyarch Games and having them work on a sequel to the one of the best-selling WW2 franchises in the industry. Grant reminded me that Treyarch has a lot of Call of Duty experience (via Call of Duty 2: Big Red One), and that he is excited to see what they do with Call of Duty 3. He also mentioned that CoD3 will be release on multiple next-gen platforms, not limited to just the Xbox 360 - it will be on Wii and PS3 as well.

During the course of the conversation I also learned that while Treyarch is preparing the release of Call of Duty 3 for next-gen consoles, Infinity Ward has been hard at work on Call of Duty 4! This comes as a big surprise to the gaming community. It lays to rest any hopes of an IW-developed CoD2 expansion pack, and brings into light an even brighter future - an all-new game. Grant could not, however, comment on the genre of the next entry to the series. When asked if it would be a WW2 shooter or a more modern game, he got real quiet... I can say, however, that the chances of IW following the track of DICE's Battlefield franchise are very high. That is to say, CoD4 = CoD Modern Warfare, and CoD5 may be CoD Future Warfare. That is totally speculation at this point.

Amidst numerous other topics, I felt obligated to mention Infinity Ward's history with SDK's and editing tools for their games. Historically, Call of Duty has had rather limited mod tools associated with its titles, generally limited to Level Editors and scripts. They definitely made major improvements with the Call of Duty 2 mod tools, but it certainly is not in the same league as editors such as the Source SDK for Half-Life 2. He mentioned that Infinity Ward has always and will always remain committed to the community, and are restricted strictly by manpower. Their number one priority is to make the game they want, and ship it on time. That being said, we'll just have to wait and see how the community falls into place on their timeline for Call of Duty 4.

Currently, Infinity Ward houses 80 industry-leading professionals, all working relentlessly on CoD4. That is a considerably larger team compared to the 25 developers that worked on the original Call of Duty. It will be interesting to see what kind of game IW can develop with this larger roster.

Finally, I asked Grant what he felt was the future for Infinity Ward.

At Infinity Ward, we have spent a lot of time trying to make games that put the players in the shoes of the soldiers who were fighting in those conflicts. If we can get the fans to try to be dodging bullets while they they sit playing the game, then we are doing something right. Traditionally, we have been focused on making sure that the single player game was extremely immersive while the multiplayer was balanced, fun, but not overly complicated. In the future, with Infinity Ward's greater depth in it's team, we now finally have the man (and woman) power to have specialists working on both, whose goals are to bring all aspects of our games to their full potential.

As it is, we've got a lot more information. Call of Duty 3 for consoles-only, confirmed. Call of Duty 4, will be available on the PC, and is confirmed. Infinity Ward is not working on an expansion pack for Call of Duty 2, but that's not to say one of their associate game studios (i.e. Gray Matter) isn't continuing the tradition - we'll have to wait and see about that. I think the future is bright for Call of Duty fans, and trust that Infinity Ward will continue to impress in the new era of next-gen gaming, and won't be letting down PC fans anytime in the future either. The Call of Duty franchise is far too profitable and popular to let die after three WW2 entries, so it will be interesting to see how far Infinity Ward and Activision can take it.

In closing, Grant also added that it is their goal as a company to continue making the best games in their genre, raising the bar from what is expected from those types of games. Thanks Grant for your time and exclusive, and we'll stay on top of the topics and report them with haste to the Call of Duty 2 HQ community!

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