Activision Call Of Duty 2019 remains shrouded in mystery. We know the game is being developed by Infinity Ward, who worked on the Modern Warfare trilogy, and we know we’ll be getting a full reveal before E3 2019 – presumably later this month.
There’s been a lot of speculation that the latest Call of Duty is actually going to be Modern Warfare 4, and while we’d recommend you take those rumours with a hefty pinch of salt until we see an official confirmation, it is true that a number of ex Infinity Ward staff who worked on past Modern Warfare titles have returned to the studio.
ActivisionAccording to various LinkedIn profiles (via GameSpot), at least five former Infinity Ward developers are back with the studio. While this might not seem that interesting at first glance, it’s worth noting that each of them has specifically worked in Modern Warfare in the past.
Infinity Ward animation director Mark Grigsby worked on the first two Modern Warfare games, along with game designer Alex Roycewicz, multiplayer design director Geoff Smith, and studio art director Joel Emslie.
All four have returned with Infinity Ward founder Zied Rieke, who worked on all three Modern Warfare games and appears to have returned to the studio as gameplay director for Call of Duty 2019.
Before rejoining Infinity Ward, Grigbsy, Roycewicz, Smith, and Emslie were at Respawn, working together on the excellent Titanfall games. Rieke was also at Respawn during development on Titanfall, before founding Darwin Game Studio in 2012, heading to Naughty Dog in 2013, and eventually coming back Infinity Ward.
In addition to the Modern Warfare trilogy, Infinity Ward also developed Ghosts and Infinite Warfare. We can assume that whatever the studio is working on isn’t Ghosts 2, as that was ruled out by the impeccably well connected Jason Schrier.
Meanwhile, Robert Bowling, a former Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward, recently took to Twitter to claim we’ll never see Infinite Warfare 2. It’s unclear how in the know Bowling would be given he now works at EA, but the reception to Infinity Ward’s sci-fi themed shooter suggests Activision wouldn’t be keen to put out a sequel anytime soon.
None of this automatically means Infinity Ward is working on a new Modern Warfare of course, as the studio could well be working on an entirely new entry, using the experience some of the team gained from Titanfall to create something completely unexpected.
Whatever happens, Call of Duty games tend to get revealed officially in May, so we really don’t have long to wait before we find out for sure what Infinity Ward has been cooking.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.