Given how big the Call of Duty franchise is today, it’s hard to believe that in years past, it wasn’t the juggernaut freight train first-person shooter that it is now, and most of its transformation can be attributed to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. However, did you know that the studio was working on a sci-fi “Halo killer” title before they even started work on COD4?
In an interview, Infinity Ward Multiplayer Design Director Geoff Smith explained how Halo’s success made it difficult to compete in the same field when the studio was working on Call of Duty 2.
All my friends were playing Halo, and I couldn’t convince them to give CoD 2 a try…I was like, ‘Well, you’re this really cool spaceman who’s shooting stuff. It’s really hard for me to convince them to be cool with, like, a wooden gun with, like, a pot on your head.’
Once COD2 was out the door, Treyarch took the reins for COD3, while Infinity Ward started working on the next entry in the franchise. Studio Art Director Joel Emslie admitted that at the time, the studio didn’t even know whether it was going to make a modern military shooter or something that could compete with Halo.
