Activision initially said no to the idea of “Modern Warfare”, according to the top developers at Infinity Ward, it was revealed on Tuesday. In an interview with the official PlayStation Magazine, Infinity Ward’s head honcho Vince Zampella says that Activision originally insisted that “Call of Duty 4” be yet another game set in World War 2 instead.
Zampella says that they had wanted to do a modern combat game for many years, but that Activision just wouldn’t allow it. “With “Call of Duty 2”, we were dead set against it being World War 2,” Zampella admits, “but Activision really wanted it, the compromise sort of being that we’d get some dev kits for consoles in exchange for doing a World War game…(because) we always wanted to be on consoles and Activision saw us more as a PC developer.”
The interview seems to reveal some tensions between the two companies, not least with Zampella and “Call of Duty” project lead Jason West both being at pains to point out that Activision at first wasn’t interested in the game that would ultimately sell more than fourteen million copies. “Activision… did not want “Modern Warfare”,” Zampella says bluntly.
“They thought working on a modern game was risky, and “Oh my God, you can’t do that, it’s crazy!” They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time.” “We had to fight for everything,” West corroborates with an air of mocking despair. “They wanted it to be World War 2. Again.”
