Tag Archives: Underground Development

A canned Call of Duty title? Surely not. But that’s what you’re looking at.

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Looks like more than just Neversoft and Radical felt the sting of layoffs following a meeting with Activision yesterday.

According to reports, Luxoflux and Underground Development, the studio responsible for Guitar Hero: Van Halen and BMX XXX, were both closed completely.

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An Activision spokesperson has rubbished a story this morning that claimed Infinity Ward was be the sole developer of Call of Duty games from herein.

From Eurogamer:

A spokesperson for the publisher told Eurogamer it was a total fabrication, and that Treyarch and Infinity Ward would still alternately create instalments in the shooter series.

The Next-Gen story claimed that Treyarch was to be cut out of Call of Duty development completely, and that Infinity Ward would be the sole studio working on the franchise from now on.

The story also speculated that the recent closure of Underground Development was partially to blame for the new contract negotiation, as Underground was working on a third-person call of Duty game which wasn’t allowed to continue under the new conditions.

Update: Whoops. Activision US has called it out, too, saying the whole thing is “erroneous information regarding the CoD franchise.”

Next-Gen’s reporting that Infinity Ward may have taken complete control of Call of Duty development, a contract change that could have ticked the last box on the decision to close Underground Development.

According to the site, a source claims that Treyarch – the developer of Call of Duty 3 and 5 – has now been cut out of the series’ loop, and will no longer work on CoD games after the fifth title ships. Infinity Ward, obviously, is the developer of slightly-popular Call of Duty 4.

Underground apparently got caught in the crossfire as it was already working on a Call of Duty title – apparently the beginning of a third-person action adventure series – but won’t be able to continue due to Infinity’s new contract with Activision.

Good story that. Should be more of it.

According to this GI report, Activision is definitely closing Underground Development after it finished the PS3 port of Quake Wars, as was rumoured last night.

“Activision is closing its Foster City development studio which had less than 45 employees,” said an Activision spokesperson. “We are currently making efforts to find opportunities for all employees at other Activision studios.”

Sorry about that. Good luck to all involved.

Says so here.

The studio was acquired by Activision in 2002 having previously worked on such gems as BMX XXX for Acclaim. Since being bought, the studio’s released one title, X-Men: The Official Game. It was named as handling the PS3 conversion of Quake Wars last year, but there’s been no update on the project’s status since then.