How the war began – the making of Call of Duty

GamesFPSCall of DutyHow the war began – the making of Call of DutyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. GamesFPSCall of DutyHow the war began – the making of Call of DutyWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Activision) Steven Spielberg started Medal Of Honor," says artist Brad Allen. “He sent us a video one time, commending certain things that he was liking in the game as we were progressing. It was super neat to get to work on a Spielberg project.” Robert Field, a modder who had built the enemy AI for Quake’s popular Frogbot, was even further from home. He arrived at Tulsa International Airport on 15 December 2000, when development on Allied Assault was already underway. “I’m from Brisbane in Australia, so walking around in the snow in Tulsa was interesting,” he says. “We even had a tornado once.” The weather was tolerable because the work was fulfilling. With the Nineties over, Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault looked like the future. “To me, up until that point, a lot of games were hyper-coloured and bright and shiny, and this was not,” Brad says. “This was subdued and realistic looking, and all the colours were drab. It was much more rich and interesting, the way they were presenting it.” D-day (Image credit: Activision) Subscribe(Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared inRetro Gamer magazine. For more in-depth features and interviews on classic games delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Retro Gamer. Subscribe (Image credit: Future PLC)This feature originally appeared inRetro Gamer magazine. For more in-depth features and interviews on classic games delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Retro Gamer. (Image credit: Future PLC) This feature originally appeared inRetro Gamer magazine. For more in-depth features and interviews on classic games delivered to your door or digital device,subscribe to Retro Gamer. “When I arrived, the animation system and everything was broken because they were replacing everything,” Robert says. “I didn’t know much about it because I was a mod author, so I thought, ‘Oh, this is what you do.’ Later on, Jason West brought the discipline where you always have a working game and you’re able to show prototypes.” Jason West had joined the team as a programmer to work on a console port. “But then I think Vince Zampella convinced him to take over,” Robert says. “He became pretty much the lead of Allied Assault. We were a bunch of mod authors and he came on and got us meeting the schedule.” Brad, who was creating the game’s characters, would grab photos of members of the team and transform them into German or American soldiers, telling them, “You’re gonna be the bad guy.” “Everybody that I was working with was super talented, and super enthusiastic about what we were making,” he says. “Everybody wanted to put the special sauce on it and spend the extra hours. It was really a fun experience, minus a few other things.” Some on the Allied Assault team had concluded that they didn’t want to stay at 2015 Inc beyond the end of the project. “We weren’t going to get a good deal with the owner of 2015,” Robert says. “Jason, Vince and Grant [Collier] wanted a better deal where we got royalty sharing.” Resolving to set up a new company, a handful of key staff started to make moves. “We were all over the place, with five or six guys sneaking off to lunches and going, ‘What are we going to do?,'” Brad says. “We had no idea what the name of the company was going to be. We just started spitballing ideas for games. One of our ex-producers had connections with different publishers, and he was like, ‘What if we got this IP or that IP?’ So it was really exciting. There were a ton of different ideas floating around and options that we could have done.” Yet the first thing the new Infinity Ward worked on was, in fact, Medal Of Honor. More precisely, an add-on pack for Allied Assault at the behest of EA. “We were still working on the same game, with the same publisher, but as another company,” Brad says. Many packed up and vacated the 2015 Inc office overnight. Although, as Brad remembers, Robert didn’t get the memo straight away, “Robert was away on vacation or out of the country or something. So we didn’t have a way to let him know. He shows up the next day, and everybody’s gone. I think Grant contacted him and let him know, ‘Hey, we’re here, this is what’s going on’. He may have been a little bewildered.” The change and bewilderment didn’t end there. When Infinity Ward was deep into development on its Medal Of Honor expansion, EA stopped paying for the work. “We were about to go under and get absorbed into the EA collective,” Brad says. “AndActivisionswooped in. They were like, ‘Hey, we’ll fund your next project. If you work for us, you can stay together as a team.’ And that was a really big issue for us, because we really liked working with each other.” Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more Infinity Ward’s primary focus was the campaign, an ambitious single-player mode that would see the player fight on different fronts of the war as three separate soldiers – one Russian, one British, one American. “Probably at one point it was more than three,” Brad says. “But we had to narrow it down for scope reasons, and have it all be able to fit on a CD.” Strength in numbers (Image credit: Activision) “I had our lead animator holding my hand and going, ‘Try this, we’re going to make this a little more extreme,'” he says. “It was a learning experience. Everybody was free to contribute.” “I had our lead animator holding my hand and going, ‘Try this, we’re going to make this a little more extreme,'” he says. “It was a learning experience. Everybody was free to contribute.” “Level designer Steve Fukuda had Saving Private Ryan running on another screen continually during the whole game, pretty much,” Robert says. “Actually, there was talk that Activision wanted to make a Band Of Brothers series. But then they’d have to pay licensing. I don’t think it would’ve been the best decision.” The team was hungry for any new piece of cinema that featured the Second World War. “That helped us with setting things apart visually,” Brad says. “Luckily there was a nice wealth of really strong cinematography. Having that goal of making things feel cinematic and real and heavy led the way for the look of the three campaigns.” Research tools were worth their weight in gold. “It’s pretty crazy,” Brad says. “He made it all the way to Modern Warfare. He’s one of the key guys now, he was the guy that stuck. Everybody was meant to be, not throwaway, but they weren’t supposed to be the heroes. Everybody was supposed to be a hero, so nobody was supposed to be the main badass.” The “big crazy struggle” of the project came in the summer of 2003, the year Call Of Duty was to ship. That’s when all of Infinity Ward upped sticks and moved from Oklahoma to California – into the LA building they would occupy until Modern Warfare 3. “We were more than just coworkers,” Robert says. “And the fact that we all came from Tulsa, it’s like this journey you’re on.” “We were packing up all our stuff, figuring out where we were gonna live, and had to hit the ground running and make this game,” Brad says. “It didn’t really seem to affect us as much as we thought it was going to, because everybody was nose to the grindstone. We were all there as many hours as we could be.” There were no demands that staff show up on the weekends. “But a lot of people were, because that was the mentality,” Brad says. “As a new company trying to prove ourselves, everybody was super focussed on making our first game really good. Or else we wouldn’t get to make another game. There were a lot of unspoken stresses.” Los Angeles was chosen partly because it was near Activision HQ, and would allow studio leaders easy access to the producers managing the game. But as far as Robert was concerned, Infinity Ward felt like an independent company, with an independent culture. “You wouldn’t get the sense that you were working at Activision,” he says. “We were insulated from disputes over what was going to happen on the game. That would be Vince and Jason talking with Activision behind closed doors, and we’d be shielded.” Monster hunter (Image credit: Activision) “Obviously things can go wrong and you start shouting at each other,” he says. “And designers are trying to outdo each other with the cool scenes. But you’ve all got the sense of being on a team working together, pushing each other: ‘I’ll control that area, you control this.'” “Obviously things can go wrong and you start shouting at each other,” he says. “And designers are trying to outdo each other with the cool scenes. But you’ve all got the sense of being on a team working together, pushing each other: ‘I’ll control that area, you control this.'” “Obviously things can go wrong and you start shouting at each other,” he says. “And designers are trying to outdo each other with the cool scenes. But you’ve all got the sense of being on a team working together, pushing each other: ‘I’ll control that area, you control this.'” The push to the end was frantic and exciting. “And then you’re just waiting for the reviews to come out,” Robert says. “That was the first shot of drugs in the vein.” Call Of Duty was hailed as a masterpiece, with scores over 90%. “We were just happy that it was well received,” Brad says. The shift reflected a growing concern with approachability. If an Infinity Ward designer was right-handed, they were told to test their level using their left, so that their aim would match that of an unseasoned player. “We were trying to get maximum sales,” Robert says. “You’re obviously not trying to do a garbage game, but we really were focussing on getting in as many people as possible. We’d get the receptionist doing playtesting, people who hadn’t played games before. Each level designer would have to watch the person play their level without any help, and if they were stuck in some spots, the designer would have to try to fix that.” Approachability may have prepared Call Of Duty for the big time, but the switch from a historical backdrop to the modern day sealed the deal. “Our designers wanted to push for a new setting, because we were burnt out,” Brad says. “As a company, we had made three World War II games, including Medal Of Honor. And so we were like, ‘Can we change this up? We’ve been making World War II longer than World War II lasted.'” There was pushback from Activision, who didn’t see many successful shooters on the market with contemporary settings, “They really didn’t want us to make Modern Warfare.” Brad doesn’t know what changed the publisher’s mind, but the launch of Modern Warfare marked Infinity Ward’s ascension to the very peak of pop culture. Call Of Duty became a water-cooler game, its campaign twists discussed on lunch breaks in schools and offices. It secured the future of the series for many more years to come. “We weren’t expecting it,” Brad says. “We knew that it was fun, especially the multiplayer – we would stick around late at night and play. But the success of that was ridiculous. It was a cool and fortunate experience – not all companies get to stick together that long.” This feature originally appeared in Retro Gamer magazine. For more fantastic in-depth features, interviews, and more on classic games,subscribe to Retro Gamerorpick up a single issue today. 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forgets to play to its own strengths"1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show"2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie"3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action"4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien"5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams’ disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite"1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat"2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses"3Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist"4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands"5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place” GAME REVIEWSMOVIE REVIEWSTV REVIEWS 1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension” 1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension” 1 Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension” 2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package” 2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package” 2 Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package” 3Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure” 3Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure” 3 Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure” 4Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years” 4Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years” 4 Indiana Jones and the Great Circle review: “The best adventure Indy has embarked on in over 30 years” 5Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths” 5Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths” 5 Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths” 1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show” 1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show” 1 Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show” 2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 2 Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 3 Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 4 The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams’ disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams’ disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 5 Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams’ disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 1 Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 2 Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 3Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist” 3Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist” 3 Skeleton Crew review: “Perfectly captures the vibes of classic Star Wars with a swashbuckling twist” 4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands” 4Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands” 4 Creature Commandos review: “James Gunn’s heartwarming, R-rated tale about super-monsters proves that the DCU is in good hands” 5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place” 5Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place” 5 Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”