Tweet
Glen Schofield is a tank of a man. The kind you'd expect to make floorboards quake, the type of person you'd conjure up in your mind if you were ever asked to picture the talent behind Call of Duty; strong, direct, American. And he makes his entrance into Sledgehammer Games' presentation theatre on an oversized scooter, playfully crashing into colleague and studio co-founder Michael Condrey, waving to the room with the sunbeam smile of a children's entertainer. Maybe he's not quite what you'd imagine of a Call of Duty developer after all.Sledgehammer Games likes to make a habit of subverting expectations, you suspect. It's the studio set up to explore new directions for the Call of Duty series, at first building a third-person, horror-tinged take on the Vietnam war that leant heavily on its prior work on Dead Space. Then it was the studio that came to the aid of Infinity Ward during the messy departure of its founders, delivering Modern Warfare 3 - and what was, soon after its release, the greatest-selling entertainment product of all time - in little over 18 months. Now it's the studio that's about to pull Call of Duty out of its groove - or, to put it a little less politely, its rut - and inject new life into what's recently felt like something of a tired franchise.
At the heart of Sledgehammer are Schofield and Condrey, a pair who first met at EA's Redwood Shores' studio when they were working on the Bond franchise, producing games such as Agent Under Fire, Everything or Nothing and From Russia With Love. There's a spark between them that comes from having worked so closely together for well over a decade, the crackle of putdowns and quick quips that makes an audience with them feel like you're with games development's very own odd couple.
Read more…
More...