The making of Sledgehammer Games and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (exclusive)

FOSTER CITY, Calif. — It takes an army to make a Call of Duty game. That’s why, over the past five years, Sledgehammer Games has staffed up to 225 people who have taken over an entire floor of a big office building hidden away south of San Francisco. Now the company can finally come out of the shadows and acknowledge its contribution to the canon and lore of Call of Duty. Its new game, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, is set 40 years in the future, and gamers can experience it starting Nov. 4.

The game is the 11th major installment in a modern combat series that generates more than a billion dollars in revenue annually for Activision Blizzard, the publisher. Sledgehammer’s job this year is to deliver a game that keeps that tradition going.