Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward has opened a brand new studio in Austin, Texas. Infinity Ward Austin joins the ranks of Infinity Ward teams in Los Angeles, Poland, and Mexico, as development on what many presume is next year’s Call of Duty title ramps up.
Infinity Ward is expanding. Excited to announce the creation of @InfinityWard Austin.
This new development team based in Austin, TX, joins our teams in LA, Poland and Mexico. We’re hiring for all positions (https://t.co/WZ0Z1DHKCw). More info to come.
— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) October 7, 2021
We’re still a month away from Call of Duty: Vanguard, and Season Six of Black Ops Cold War and Warzone just launched today, but it already seems like Infinity Ward is the studio next on deck for Call of Duty 2022, which is rumored to be Modern Warfare 2, a follow-up to 2019’s Modern Warfare reboot.
Infinity Ward was arguably the studio that established the current Call of Duty live platform, which includes Warzone integration and free seasonal content rather than isolated paid content packs. The studio was also the development team behind Warzone before it got handed off to Raven for ongoing development and updates. Additionally, Infinity Ward developed a brand new engine for Modern Warfare and Warzone, which is also being utilized in an updated form for Sledgehammer’s Vanguard, and is expected to be the platform Call of Duty will use moving forward, to better facilitate unity across the premium titles and Warzone. In fact, the Poland team is a tech-based studio formed specifically to focus on building out and improving that engine.
In its announcement, Infinity Ward says that there is “more info to come.” The creation of a new Austin-based studio comes in addition to nearly every Activision studio having a hand in Call of Duty development in some way. The advent of an interconnected free-to-play Warzone experience and the seasonal live-service model, serving up cosmetic bundles and a seasonal Battle Pass alongside free game content and events, has made Call of Duty more successful and profitable than ever before.
Development on the next premium Call of Duty is expected to be well underway, we probably won’t hear anything more official for quite some time. Activision is currently focused on closing out Black Ops Cold War with Season Six, launching Vanguard next month, and then getting the Sledgehammer title into its own seasonal cadence. If the pattern holds up, we’ll hear about the rumored Modern Warfare 2 officially in August of next year, but expect plenty of the usual Call of Duty leaks and rumors to precede it.
At this point, it’s unknown how exactly the Austin-based studio fits into the broader picture of Call of Duty development.
