In an interview with Edge today, Infinity Ward executives reflected on their experiences over the past decade. Head of production Steve Ackrich,…
In an interview with Edge today, Infinity Ward executives reflected on their experiences over the past decade. Head of production Steve Ackrich, and executive producer Mark Rubin, provided an honest recap of the key events that “defined the studio’s ethos.”
After losing almost half of their workforce in 2010, due to an uproar regarding the dismissal of two founding members, it seemed like Infinity Ward would be no more. Ackrich said this was not the case, going on to describe the aftermath as both good and bad, with Infinity Ward remaining very much in existence:
We lost some exceptionally talented people, there’s no denying that… But this is Infinity Ward; Infinity Ward is here in this building. Yes, we lost some talented people, but in a number of different ways we brought new life and new blood into the studio to try new things.
Now it is 2013 and Infinity Ward are still continuing recruitment. Called a “studio of leads” by the staff, the development team boasts having experienced developers who once worked in management positions, taking subordinate roles within the team.
Ackrich explains the allure of Infinity Ward is “definitely not for the irresistible pay cheque… I think COD is a chance to have their efforts recognised.”
Moving on to talk specifically about their latest game, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Rubin explained how the focus for Infinity Ward is now to future-proof against transitions. First they create an incredible looking game, with high resolutions and detailed textures, and then scale it down to maximise performance for each individual platform.
We’re not trying to make a game for the next gen or the current gen. We’re trying to make a game for the gen after that. That’s different from the past, where we wanted to be platform agnostic; we wanted a game that was the same on every platform. What we’ve done now is create a game that’s going to look great on every platform individually.
Infinitely Ward now have a stable set of employees that are clearly optimistic about the release of their next game. With all of the drama behind them, they can now get back to producing blockbuster titles and breaking sales records again… and again… and again…