How Sledgehammer Games became the new Call of Duty studio (interview)

Sledgehammer Games is five years old, and it’s finally getting its turn in the limelight as the new studio working on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which debuts on Nov. 4. This is the latest in Activision’s Call of Duty first-person shooter series that has generated billions of dollars.

Created by Dead Space co-creators Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield, Sledgehammer Games was born as a Call of Duty studio. It started working on a third-person combat game, but it left that project to work with Infinity Ward — mangled by the departure of its founders and a civil war with Activision — to build Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. After that game debuted to huge sales in 2011, Sledgehammer went to work on Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.