Activision: Call of Duty Strengthened By Creative ‘Freedom to Fail’
The Call of Duty franchise will be strengthened by its recent switch to a three-year development cycle, which allows for the creative ‘freedom to fail,’ according to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg in an interview with Joystiq.
“That extra year of development time, particularly with the new consoles and the more powerful hardware, has really paid off thus far to iterate, innovate and try new things. To find out which things didn’t work and have the freedom to fail in the creative process, so what goes on the disc is the best ideas,” said Hirshberg.
“The thing that the three-year development cycle allows is these games have gotten so ambitious, we’re packing so many different modes of play onto the disc. The things that started off as flyers, like zombies or co-op became their own whole games. Activision has a narrative that doesn’t match the reality, which is quite potent,” he continued.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be developed by Sledgehammer Games for the PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while High Moon Studios will handle development for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, a change from the two studio switch of Infinity Ward and Treyarch. The game is set to be released on November 4. Call of Duty: Ghosts was released last year and met a mixed reception from critics.