Activision confirmed the new Call of Duty sequel will be released this year. It was announced that this year, the CoD franchise will be returning to its roots. Thomas Tipple, the chief operating officer for Activision, stated that although Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was an innovative and high-quality game, Tipple revealed that it underperformed the company’s expectations.
Tipple stated that they knew that sales were down significantly when compared to the previous year’s CoD: Black Ops III. He stated that this was partly because Infinite Warfare was a new subseries in the game franchise whereas Black Ops is already established thus making the comparison is difficult. Long-time Call of Duty fans also complained of the futuristic setting of Infinite Warfare. The company, however, does not regret the direction they took with Infinite Warfare.
Tipple explained that the space setting did not resonate with a portion of the fandom of the franchise. He stated that despite the risks that the company foresaw, Activision has an experienced and passionate study that is deeply committed to pushing in that direction. The company believes that it is important to consider the passions of their game teams in the decision of content creation.
Activision is very aware that there is a huge demand from the fans for a Call of Duty game that is similar to the older titles of the franchise. In 2017, the game company will bring Call of Duty back to its roots. Tipple states that fans are excited about Call of Duty returning to its roots. Sledgehammer Games who is developing this year’s game is also worked up with the new project as published by GameSpot.
The Call of Duty franchise began in 2003 when World War II era FPS games were at the peak of popularity. The franchise’s setting pushed further and further into the future since the release of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007, the latest of which was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare which brought the conflict into outer space with drones, mechanized infantry and outer space dogfights as reported by Polygon.
