Call of Duty games will now have a three year development cycle

Written by Brandon Hofer on February 06, 2014

News: Activision reveals on an investor call that three studios will be making Call of Duty titles with each game having a three year development cycle.

During an investor call today Activision made an announcement regarding the future of the Call of Duty franchise. As you may or may not know, despite Call of Duty games coming out on an annual basis, each title is actually in development for two years. That is one of things that allows the games to come out at the high quality they do as opposed to having to make a game in ten months, similar to what happens to sports titles like Madden. During this investor call though Activision revealed that Call of Duty games will now go through a three year development cycle. What that means is that in 2013 we saw a Call of Duty from Infinity Ward, in 2014 we will see a Call of Duty game from Sledgehammer Games and in 2015 we will see a Call of Duty game from Treyarch. Nothing is known about this year’s Call of Duty title except that when it comes out it will have been in development for three years, the first game in the franchise under the new model.

“For the first time, this years Call of Duty game, and future Call of Duty games, are being built on a three year development cycle,” says Activision. “There are several advantages to doing this, the first is of course quality. This will give our designers more time to envision and to innovate.”

This can really only be seen as a good thing as, theoretically, a longer development cycle for these games will make them that much better. If one of the studios has a new idea for their upcoming game they will now have an extra year to try and implement it, for example. This might also help with some story fatigue that some gamers are experiencing. If you enjoy the Ghosts story, for example, then you are going to have to wait until 2016 to see what happens next which will allow you to concentrate on the other two sub franchises like Black Ops or whatever Sledgehammer Games comes up with. If you don’t like one of those sub-franchises then you can simply skip it until the one you do like is coming out. For those of you thinking that Sledgehammer Games sounds familiar but you can’t really remember from, they helped Infinity Ward with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

“They’ve demonstrated their skill on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and on their past highly rated games,” says Eric Hirshberg, President and CEO of Activision Publishing. “They’re the perfect choice to support our new approach and bring fresh ideas and creativity to this great franchise and to raise the bar for next-gen games overall.”

What do you think about this announcement? Are you happy to see that Call of Duty games will get an extra year or development time or do you not care? Let us know in the comments below.