Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has been released today. Millions of players are already playing the latest installment of one of Activision Blizzard’s (now owned by Microsoft) most profitable franchises, despite the negative reviews it has received from both the media and users.
“To a very continuity-focused multiplayer mode that could have easily been an update to Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer, we would have to add a campaign that, while giving us much more freedom and an open world, ultimately hasn’t proven to be very exciting, to say the least. It’s full of bugs, very short, and its plot lacks interest. A combo breaker, indeed.
But everything has a reason. Yesterday, journalist Jason Schreier reported in a Bloomberg article that Sledgehammer Games, the studio behind Modern Warfare III, had only 16 months to complete the entire campaign. This is very little time, considering the current production timelines of the industry and those of the Call of Duty franchise itself, which usually has 3 years to develop the campaigns for its releases.
According to Bloomberg, this significant reduction in development timelines was imposed by Activision itself, even forcing developers to work nights and weekends to finish on time. Furthermore, according to sources consulted by Bloomberg, the development of Modern Warfare 3 began with the idea of being a DLC for Modern Warfare 2, something that would later change.
However, the main person in charge at Sledgehammer Games, Aaron Halon, later stated in a Twitter post that the development team was ‘incredibly proud of Modern Warfare III.’ He added, ‘We have worked hard to bring this vision to life, which has been years in the making. Anything said to the contrary is false: this is our game, and we are eager to play online with all of you.”’
