Call of Duty is one of the most famous video game franchises in the world, and the most profitable to originate from the United States of America. It is also the best-selling first-person shooter (FPS) video game series ever, as per Guinness World Records. One core game of the franchise is released every year, meaning the next game in the series is never too far away.
It isn’t uncommon for video games to borrow ideas and take inspiration from one another, just like with every other creative medium. But Call of Duty going the Uncharted route is something no one expected. In an interview with MinnMax, former Sledgehammer Games developer Bret Robbins revealed that they had, in fact, considered going down that path.
What do we know about the Uncharted-style Call of Duty game?
Uncharted is a PlayStation-exclusive action–adventure third-person shooter game which only made its way to PC last year, and has been developed by famed studio Naughty Dog, also known for The Last of Us series. Uncharted is known for its cinematic approach to video games, and also for astonishing, linear action sequences that look right out of a Hollywood blockbuster movie.
In the video interview with MinnMax, Bret Robbins gave us some information on the Uncharted-style Call of Duty game. He said it would have been a gritty, grounded, and realistic game set in Cambodia and that while the team had made a playable demo version lasting fifteen minutes, they had not done much beyond that, such as charting out the rest of the game. He essentially termed it as an experiment. Robbins, though, did say that:
“We did a prototype for it and we made a demo. It was cool. It was fun. I think someone should go make that game someday.”
Sledgehammer Games co-founder Michael Condrey, while he was still working at the studio, had previously said that:
“In your head you instantly can imagine an Uncharted style of game, but done in the lore of Call of Duty. You can see that. We built a prototype and it was cool. It was a true, gritty, Apocalypse Now take on Vietnam in an interactive way. We had a 15-minute demo, and there were some great moments”.
Unfortunately, this potential new game was never fully developed, and there was seemingly no work done on it after the demo.
What did Bret Robbins say about Call of Duty Advanced Warfare 2?
In the same interview, Bret Robbins also revealed that some work had been started on a sequel to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but that this too had not made it beyond the demo and prototype stage, and it never materialized from there. The developer was, in a sense, in a position to choose between that or Call of Duty: World War II, with them eventually opting for the latter as Robbins said that the team felt it was a better opportunity for all of them.
The current title that Sledgehammer Games is working on is not Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 2, but instead Modern Warfare III, which launches on November 10th on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
