An ex-Sledgehammer Games programmer explains what happened to the planned sequel to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-2-mock-up An ex-Sledgehammer Games programmer recently discussed the cancellation of a Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare sequel in an interview. Sledgehammer’s first original Call of Duty game, Advanced Warfare, was representative of the series’ shift toward future settings. In 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, players were transported to the year 2054, where they encountered futuristic features including Exo suits and laser guns. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 in 2012 was not the first game in the franchise to make use of a futuristic look, but the addition of the Exos and energy weaponry gave Advanced Warfare its unique flavor. Although not all gamers like the changes, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare still has a dedicated following and there have been persistent whispers about a sequel in the almost ten years since its debut. In a recent interview with MinnMax, Bret Robbins, a former creative director at Sledgehammer Games, explained some of the mystery behind Advanced Warfare 2. According to Robbins, Sledgehammer was offered “a better opportunity” to work on Call of Duty: World War 2, therefore the successor to Advanced Warfare was shelved after an early prototype was developed. Like Medal of Honor, the Brothers in Arms series, and even certain early Battlefield games, Call of Duty got its start as a World War II shooter franchise. Uncharted meets Call of Duty is how Robbins described another unpublished Sledgehammer project, a third-person action game. When Sledgehammer began working with Infinity Ward on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, they shelved this project. Robbins opted to focus on the Advanced Warfare sequel instead of reviving this project. He said that “everything about it was Sledgehammer’s,” referring to the fact that, unlike Modern Warfare 3, which continued where Infinity Ward left off, Advanced Warfare was their own original concept. As previously reported by Gamasutra, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg had mentioned that Sledgehammer Games had expressed interest in developing Advanced Warfare 2, but has since moved on to other projects. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is notorious for a number of things, including its dated celebrity casting and the “press F to pay respects” meme, which has since become one of the most memorable in the history of video games. In spite of this, it’s clear that the game still has a dedicated following, since rumors about a sequel have persisted for years. With Bret Robbins no longer at Sledgehammer and it now being over 10 years since Advanced Warfare’s debut, a sequel is unlikely to come any time soon. However, the possibility of an Advanced Warfare sequel remains if enough fans make their voices known.
