14 DAY TRIAL // Modern Warfare 2 is just around the corner. The shooter, which has been put together by Infinity Ward and is published by Activision, is set to be released on November 10 and it's carrying so much clout that a lot of companies delayed their games so as not to stand in the way of this firepower-packing behemoth.
And, with the corporate culture at Activision, which aims to emphasize sequels and put out a new title in an important series every year, some have been wondering whether the people at Infinity Ward are already putting together the inevitable third video game in the Modern Warfare series.
Robert Bowling, who is the community manager for Infinity Ward, has told Videogamer.com that, at the moment, the studio has “honestly no clue” related to what it plans to do after Modern Warfare 2 ships. Previously, he responded to comments from Randy Pitchford, the head of Gearbox, by saying that, “Eventually we'll do something else.”
Bowling then elaborated by adding that, “A lot of that mentality went into Modern Warfare 2. That's why it's Modern Warfare 2. It is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, but you'll never see that in game. We never call it that. It's because we think of this as a new IP.”
Of course, actually leaving a very successful intellectual property is easier said than done. The people at Infinity Ward just need to ask Bungie, the studio that has worked with Microsoft to create the very powerful Halo series. Initially, it said that Halo 3 would be the last of the series, wrapping things up and leaving them to explore other ideas. That was then. At the moment, Bungie has just released Halo 3: ODST, which is a sort of a standalone expansion, and it is also working on Halo: Reach, which is set to appear in 2010. The official line is that, after that game is done, the Halo franchise will be history for Bungie.