Raven Could Be Making Call of Duty Titles [Rumblings]

Some might say that Activision is in crisis. Their “A Team”, Infinity Ward, has been emptied over the past month or two since Jason West and Vince Zampella were fired, and the legal fallout came to light.

Activision has three Call of Duty games that we know of. There’s Black Ops, in development at Treyarch, and there’s an untitled CoD game by Sledgehammer, which sources say could be something like ‘Future Warfare’, ‘Advanced Warfare’, ‘Secret Warfare’, or ‘Space Warfare’, according to recent discoveries based on domain and trademark registrations by Activision. The third is obviously Modern Warfare 3.

There’s a rumour floating around the internet that Raven, another studio owned by the publisher, is going to be making DLC map packs for Black Ops.

But the question that everyone wants to know is: who the hell is going to work on Modern Warfare 3? Bungie certainly made it clear that they don’t want to.

Now, I must be honest when I’ve made clear my impressions of Raven titles in general. They’re good – just not great. Look at Wolfenstein or Quake 4 to get my drift. But their latest effort, Singularity, when released, might be the telling factor in whether it would be a good move to potentially let them handle Modern Warfare – Activision’s most profitable franchise.

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Sources:

Rumor: Raven Working on New Call of Duty [Shacknews]

Trademark and Domain registrations [Superannuation]

Raven Could Be Making Call of Duty Titles [Rumblings]

Six Days in Fallujah Still Coming, Likely This Year

                                    “Hold up, we lost our publisher!”

Last year there was a lot of talk going around about this title, called Six Days in Fallujah. The game was revealed in about April 2009. Then later, after Konami withdrew as the game’s publisher, interest in the title died down, and it was even said that most of the team at Atomic Games, the developers, was let go.

But development on the title continued regardless, and now several months later, the name has resurfaced, and a source told IGN recently that the game is completed, and so should come out this year, although a release date is still pending, and the game still needs to secure a publisher it seems.

“I can promise you that game is still coming out and it is finished.”

It was speculated that Konami pulled out of the publishing deal seeing as the game was considered very controversial, and many people, particularly veterans and families of soldiers fighting in the Middle East, spoke out - and against - the game. They claimed it was too soon for such a game to be released as the war was still ongoing at the time, and still is, several years after it began (in Afghanistan: 2001- ; although Iraq was 2003 onwards).

The game takes place in Fallujah, Iraq, during the early part of the second Gulf War, or War in Iraq, or War Against Terror (whichever you prefer).

My guess is they’ll also need to get the hype machine dusted off and working again, seeing as people pretty much forgot about this game, and declared it cancelled or dead in their minds months ago. It’ll be going up against other popular modern shooters like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Medal of Honor, and not to mention Treyarch’s Call of Duty, although that’s set in a different period (supposedly Vietnam or the Cold War in general). Hell, even old favourites like Modern Warfare and last year’s Modern Warfare 2 are also based in and around the ongoing war.

As for a publisher, some say that they could go the self-publishing route through digital distribution channels, as it seems getting a publisher and going retail would be a difficult and risky thing to do with this title. Seeing as the game was initially supposed to be for consoles like the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3, in addition to the PC, Xbox Live and PSN spring to mind too.

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Source: IGN

Six Days in Fallujah Still Coming, Likely This Year

Activision Fires Infinity Ward Heads, Talks About Future Call of Duty Games

The big news that has swarmed all over the net lately is that there’s been a feud of sorts between Activision and Infinity Ward, the developers of Modern Warfare 2, and most other Call of Duty games.

Reportedly the President, Jason West, and CEO Vince Zampella, of the studio have been fired for "breaches of contract and insubordination”. Security guards escorted people out of the office too. The LinkedIn and Facebook pages of both guys confirms the rumours, and have left IW. Some rumours suggest that it was due to IW not being paid royalties from Activision.

Steve Pearce and Steve Ackrich are the new interim heads at the company.

The infamous Bobby Kotick of Activision has apparently also held a meeting or two with the remaining staff. People all over are not only attacking Activision, but reckon that the situation is far from resolved.

But the development of Call of Duty games goes on, as there will be two expansions or DLC packs for Modern Warfare 2, set for release this year, a Treyarch developed game supposedly set in Vietnam, and now another Call of Duty game said to be an action-adventure game, developed by Sledgehammer games, formed by the heads of Visceral Games (developers of Dead Space), Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey. And that still leaves another Call of Duty game probably coming next year, which must be Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, by IW, if things settle down within the company.

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Source: G4tv

Activision Fires Infinity Ward Heads, Talks About Future Call of Duty Games