During E3 2010, Activision Executive Vice President of Studios, Dave Stohl, said that great new franchises will come from the rebuilding of Infinity Ward. The comment comes after Activision canned IW top dogs Vince Zampella and Jason West back in March, and the subsequent walk-outs from over 30 of the IW staff. Now Activision is currently rebuilding the new team and apparently isn't having any problems in the recruiting process.
"It is still a huge recruiting drive," he said. "I’ve been a development guy for a long time, right? Recruiting at IW is not a problem. What we’re trying to do is say that IW is a culture, it’s a way of doing things, there’s a lot of people there and there’s still a lot of passion for doing it. We’re trying to rebuild, trying to help them and support them to rebuild. So people are stepping up, new people are coming in and we’re setting the bar so high. And we’re making sure it fits with the culture of what IW actually is. So far so good."
In addition to Infinity Ward, Stohl also talked about Bungie's new 10-year-long IP, simply calling it "incredible" without revealing any specifics. The relationship between the publisher and developer was revealed back in April, and neither party has revealed anything pertaining to the new IP; they probably won't until Halo: Reach has come and gone.
"Obviously, we haven’t announced timing, or anything like that: they’re focused on launching [Halo] Reach," Stohl said. "But the process is going to be cool, the launch is going to be incredible. I’m really excited."
We'll see. Outside the Halo franchise, Bungie has brought PC gamers IPs such as Marathon, Myth, and Oni. Maybe we'll will get a new dose of Marathon by way of a fourth installment more in tune with today's FPS games... a franchise reboot of sorts.
