A former Call of Duty director has laid out his concerns about the state of the series in a recent interview.
Glen Schofield is a name you may or may not be familiar with, but he's one of the minds behind Dead Space and the more recent Callisto Protocol. More pertinent to this story, though, is his stint as a Call of Duty director at Sledgehammer Games.
From 2009 to 2018, Schofield served as co-director on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011), Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, and Call of Duty: WWII.
In an interview with VGC, Schofield answered a question about the franchise's future now that it's in Xbox's wheelhouse, and he's uncertain about how things will go.
"I worry about it immensely, I really do," he says. "Because what’s happening to Gears of War, where’s Halo… you know what I mean? And you look at EA, you look at these big companies, and I’m like where’s the Strike games? Where’s this game? And there are so many that just fall by the wayside."
His main concern seems to be that Xbox leadership won't be compatible with existing staff incentives and other cultural factors.
"Unfortunately, once you’re assimilated by one of these companies, I think you take on some of their traits," Schofield says. "The other thing is, I don’t know, but I would imagine that the Call of Duty bonus system is out, and now you have theirs, and people are going to go 'that isn’t that'."
On top of that, he's worried that the loss of key creative leads will have an impact, citing his own departure as well as the likes of Michael Condrey (Sledgehammer co-founder) and David Vonderhaar (longtime CoD designer).
"I’ll give you one selfish example, I hate doing this, but since I left Sledgehammer, none of the games have been very good. I mean, the last one [from Sledgehammer, Modern Warfare 3 (2023)] was a 50. They still sell well.
"You know, that happens. You move. I always wonder 'why did you take that guy out, it’s not going to work later', and very few times does that work."
It's a fairly sceptical viewpoint, and one that will only be proven right or wrong in the long term.