Double also, I’m sure lots of Will’s work will still be felt in DLC.
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I’m happy that 343 is working on a new campaign but im hoping that it’s for next generation Xbox console and not be cross-gen but can still play it on Series X/S via Cloud Streaming. Give them 5+ years and eliminate the wide open areas and optional side content which outside of bounties wasn’t really any good. Just give me a 12-15 hour story campaign that is excellent. I’ll be more than satisfied with that.
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Pete Hines retiring is surprising as I thought he would hang around for a long time but congratulations to him for one hell of a 24 year career at Bethesda.
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Crystal Dynamics is the lead development studio on Perfect Dark which is why they were brought in as so many people left The Initiative. This for me personally is a huge positive because im far more confident in Crystal being a veteran development studio that’s been around for 20+ years and with Gallagher there, yeah, no worries about Perfect Dark. It’s probably 2025/2026 but unlike 2020 when it was first revealed, I have no worries about when it releases because there’s so many other first party games coming over the rest of this generation that I will have plenty of games to play.
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Will Shen leaving is disappointing as the quests in Starfield are for the most part, excellent. The faction quest lines are great. However, as someone who’s interested in Wyrdsong, im happy he went to work on that game especially since that studio is made up of ex-Bethesda Game Studios and I believe ex-CDPR developers. So this turns out to be a positive for me.
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Starfield’s story is one of the weakest aspect of the game for me, so a change could be good for Bethesda.
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He was there for 15 years as well apparently, they’re going into ES6 so it’s probably a bit of too much same same things and it’s the best to go now. It’s annoying how people don’t take into consideration how long they’ve worked in a single workplace, I know it’s much easier for some people to use it as CW bait but it’s just cringe.
I also doubt there’s going to be much downtime, with Starfield support ongoing and TES VI ramping up quickly.
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News about Minecraft selling 300 million copies reminded me of this.
Pretty safe to say that he didn’t mess up.
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Didn’t they make several Spidey games? Wonder what’s next for tjem.
Pretty sure they did the CTR remake too, they are a good dev but like everyone else they’ve been stuck in the CoD mines
Then I really hope they get the chance to leave those mines. It’s kinda ridiculous that one game had all those studios on it.
That one game makes more money than almost any release you can mention and it does so in part because they have so many teams working on it.
I can’t see that changing anytime soon. It’s too obvious a money printing machine.
Yeah, I’m afraid you’re probably right about that.
Exactly how many studios are on CoD? And who are they?
I mean, you can read most of those studios, like Beenox, staffing up one of two ways.
- A.) They are staffing up because they just plan to throw more bodies at COD
- B.) They are staffing up because they realize COD can’t be the only thing they do and isn’t tenable long term (as mentioned by Bobby Kotick Himself during the hearings)
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Eight of them:
- Infinity Ward
- Treyarch
- Raven Software
- Sledgehammer Games
- Beenox
- High Moon Studios
- Toys for Bob
- Activision Shanghai
Just before the merger closing an article resurfaced stating the number of people was somewhere around 3000 people overall.
Over 3,000 People Now Working On Call Of Duty At Activision (kotaku.com)
This was at a time when the total ABK work force was around 10,000. Recent numbers have been far higher than that. In an interview recently with Bobby it was stated it is 17,000:
Activision Blizzard CEO Addresses Toxic Workforce Claims Amid Microsoft Deal (variety.com)
For a company with 17,000 employees worldwide…
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Toys for Bob just released Crash Team Rumble so they aren’t 100% in the CoD mines. I imagine Beenox are similar. It wouldn’t surprise me if they have another project in the works (maybe Spyro 4).
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I don’t see much changing with CoD, at least in terms of the yearly releases
It’s simply too valuable, pumping these out every year not only brings in insane money but it’s also a big reason in what keeps the brand so strong as it never lets another competitor get ahead
Not releasing would be like EA or T2 not releasing the yearly sports games and with Game Pass, it will be a major reason to keep people constantly subscribed when they pump them out every year
What I do hope is that they let the non major studios splinter off slightly or grow them enough so they can work on CoD but also have teams that can do other smaller projects like the Crash’s, Tony Hawk or even a sequel to those amazing Transformers games, things like that
I feel that’s probably the best case scenario as there’s no way they are going to mess to heavily with CoD
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I think there’s a happy medium where they can let off the gas on the schedule slightly but still keep it consistent and sufficiently staffed.
The CoD machine is going to collapse eventually and it’s better to get ahead of that and plan for it rather than let it happen and then react.
It won’t happen soon, though. But I think it will happen.
Agreed. I think we get CoD this year, Next and maybe even 2025. After that I can see it going every other year.
Holy shit!
I mean the games clearly remain successful every year, but when did so many studios became a CoD factory? Starting from which CoD? I mean the 360 CoD games were fine too, always a lot of content, plenty maps and a decent campaign, zombie modes etc. Adding so many studios, in what ways did it become better than the ones that were made solely by IW or Sledgehammer Games?
I mean take MW1 (the first one) and put that next to a CoD that released several years later. What is the real difference, in which ways did it grow because it had so many studios instead of just IW?
High Moon was first making Transformers games, I remember that and I remember some Spidey games from Beenox. So it must have been after that.
I didn’t know crystal was the lead developer. They need to put a ring on that
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