Giant Bomb has got their hands on an internal Activision memo which states that Infinity Ward and Neversoft are going to be combined together. The memo was written by CEO of Activision Publishing Eric Hershberg. “As you know, Neversoft and Infinity Ward teamed up for the development of Call of Duty: Ghosts,” it reads. “And through that process, it became clear that the two studios have very complementary skill sets. Between these two excellent studios, it seemed like a single ‘super-studio’ could emerge.”
Whilst Infinity Ward is currently Activision’s most successful studio, the honour used to be held by Neversoft. The developer rose to fame with the Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise which contains some of the highest reviewed games of all time. In 2007 Neversoft were moved onto the Guitar Hero franchise with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock which broke several sales records after it’s release. However, when the Guitar Hero franchise experienced a sudden and dramatic decline, so too did Neversoft. In 2010 it was announced that the studio was downsizing and that 50 employees were being laid off.
Now they are being absorbed into Infinity Ward to join Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software and Beachhead Studios in working on the Call of Duty franchise. Activision is hoping that by getting more teams involved they can continue putting out annual instalments without compromising the quality. Unfortunately, neither studio head Joel Jewett nor stuido director Scott Pease will be making the transition as both have decided to retire from the industry following Activision’s decision.
“As a gamer, all I can say is that I hope both Joel and Scott come of ‘out of retirement’ someday and develop more great Activision games for us all to play,” said Hirshberg. “As a colleague of Joel and Scott’s, all I can say is thank you and congratulations on an incredible run.”
Via Giant Bomb