Sledgehammer games

Founded in 2009 by Glen Schofield ( Eng. Glen Schofield ) and Michael Condrey ( Eng. Michael Condrey ), previously working in Visceral Games . The studio staff consists of people who played key roles in creating such games as: Dead Space , The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King , Tomb Raider , James Bond: Everything or Nothing , Ratchet & Clank , Resistance , Afro Samurai , Soul Reaver Activision entrusted the studio with the development of the game from the Call of Duty series ^[3] - this will be the first game of the studio. Later it turned out that this game will not appear in 2011 ^[4] .

On November 9, 2010, there was a rumor that the events in the game being developed by the studio will occur in the future with the participation of space infantry ^[5] .

On May 24, 2011, the name of the studio appears in the premiere official trailer for the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game, which confirms the information that the studio is working on this game ^[6] .

On June 23, 2011, in an interview with IndustryGamers, Eric Hirshberg said that the team behind the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 game is basically the same team that created Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 . According to Hirschberg, the Sledgehammer Games studio acts as a full-fledged development partner, and the final product will be a joint vision of the game by these two studios ^[7] . In the same interview, Hirschberg noted that Activision is still interested in an adventure game in the Call of Duty universe from Sledgehammer Games ^[8] , which was supposed to work on this game initially ^[9] , but in the end this game was postponed ^[4] and the studio is helping to develop Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 . Almost before the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Glen Schofield stated that perhaps this unfinished project in the Call of Duty universe would be completely closed ^[10] . In May 2014, it became known that the creation of the game was canceled and it was a third-person shooter, the actions of which took place during the Vietnam War , in Cambodia ^[11] . The concept drawings of the game were published by one of the designer who worked on the game at the end of June 2014 ^[12] .

In December 2011, the studio began searching for a person in the team that should enter the team working on an unannounced project from the Call of Duty universe and work on the development of multi-user interaction in the game ^[13] .

At the beginning of February 2014, Activision announces that the Call of Duty series games are moving to a three-year development cycle (new games in the series will continue to be released every year, as before). Infinity Ward and Treyarch Studios that previously worked on games are supplemented by Sledgehammer Games . The latter is developing the next game in the Call of Duty series , which should go on sale for PC , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the second half of 2014 ^{[14] [15]} . The level of graphics at which at that time the game was being developed by the studio was called "a huge step forward compared to Call of Duty: Ghosts " ^[16] , and the game itself will become the studio’s most ambitious project ^[17] .

In May 2019, Sledgehammer Games reported problems with the departure of the founders of the company and a large part of the employees, due to which Call of Duty: Vietnam, scheduled for 2020, was canceled . Activision decided to give the right to create CoD 2020 (Black Ops 5) to Treyarch, and Sledgehammer Games will “help them”.