A secret third-person Call of Duty spin-off game titled 'Call of Duty: Devil's Brigade' was cancelled just five months before the release of Infinity Ward's first Modern Warfare.
That's according to The Verge, which has provided a number of details on the spin-off, as well as a blurry movie and some screens.
Set in Italy during World War II, Devil's Brigade was to feature exploration, squad-based gameplay, and a "grim" story that followed a team of "skilfully trained killing machines".
"[The vertical slice] didn't have a whole lot of [cinematic moments]," said James Schomer, designer on Devil's Brigade. "But I think a lot of that was planned. We were aware of the cinematic nature that Call of Duty was trending towards. But it was not part of the original demo. It was a 'this is what we're shooting for' sort of thing."
According to VandenBerghe, the title's viability was assessed using the 'stage gate process', where progress is looked at in a series of meetings along the way, but the progress of the project was significantly impacted by the release of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare, which changed the way Activision looked at the Call of Duty. CoD: Devil's Brigade was reportedly canned nine months into development.
"We were ready for our final green light just as the merger with Vivendi/Blizzard was announced," explained Kyle Brink, lead designer of Devil's Brigade. "As is normal in a merger, you do everything you can to clean up your balance sheet. A studio that isn't in full production on a title with major revenue attached to it, which is about to ask for tens of millions in development dollars, is a great candidate for closure at that point. Was this also a way to keep IW happy after they had just produced Modern Warfare and made a hojillion dollars? Perhaps, but nobody ever put it to us that way."
Scott Bandy and Trevor Jalowitz are still working at Activision, while James Schomer is now at LightBox Interactive, developing Starhawk for Sony. VandenBerghe is serving as creative director on Ubisoft's Far Cry 3.
Activision is believed to have taken a second crack at a third-person Call of Duty, but Sledgehammer Games general manager Glen Schofield said in October: "We'll probably cancel it". Sledgehammer co-developed Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward.
Comments
9 comments so far...
brookie_2001 on 22 Feb '12 said:
I don't see what a third person CoD would offer, other than a cover mechanic. They could implement most of the features into an FPS (Squad mechanics).
Still as much as i dislike the annual release thing with CoD. I don't want them to monopolise another genre.
Ali_ on 22 Feb '12 said:
I like the idea of a Dirty Dozen style CoD though, much like the first Bad Company was inspired by Kelly's Heroes.
TheCrimsonFenix on 22 Feb '12 said:
I personally think a third person camera would have been a fresh perspective for a CoD game but only on the conditions that it was a handheld variation of the series (like Killzone Liberation on PSP) and of course the animation would have to look better than the dodgy stuff seen in the console versions. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this turned up again in the future in some shape or form as a handheld, phone or Wii U title.
BenThomasFoster on 22 Feb '12 said:
hard to see if the game would be any good from the video. esspecially since modern warfare when originally came out was both spectacular graphicsally and was simply superb the 3rd person game prob would of never stood a chance of getting good.
G_R7 on 22 Feb '12 said:
How different could gaming be now if this game come out instead of CoD4?
azz72 on 22 Feb '12 said:
A better place I'd say.
rivariad on 22 Feb '12 said:
anbody remembers Rune? now that was a great game
KMakawa on 22 Feb '12 said:
This was shown two or so years ago, I dont really think this is new..
And they've been trying third person for quite a long time now, for sending it in that direction -- just never had the balls to release one.
diggah on 25 Feb '12 said:
Personally I miss the WWII COD. I loved the first one and to a lesser extent the 2nd one but I feel IW have taken it too far down the modern road for it to ever return. A shame really.
Mind you even Battlefield did this to its own heritage so I guess its just following the trend