GameInformer interviews Infinity Ward on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Development – Campaign, Origins, And More

GameInformer has shared a video today featuring Infinity Ward’s Campaign Directors Jacob Minkoff and Taylor Kurosaki.

Here’s a summary what was talked about in the interview:

• Ideas for 2019 game started before Infinite Warfare shipped in 2016
• Patrick Kelly, IW Studio Head, voiced that they should make Modern Warfare again.
• Taylor Kurosaki says he ‘grew found of Infinite Warfare’s character’ but put those aside to make Modern Warfare. He also says that those characters are still out there and will be ‘revisited’ in the future.
• He says they will make Infinite Warfare 2 whenever the year Infinite Warfare took place actually comes around. Infinite Warfare ‘will be Modern Warfare at some point’
• He says both Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare “are about warfare.” Infinite Warfare was about being a “captain and figuring things out on the fly.” But “Modern Warfare has the burden of being the protector.” “You carry the burden with you” in Modern Warfare.
• On why it is a MW reboot and not MW4: “We talked about it a bunch.” “We basically landed pretty quickly that if we made a sequel we would have to be telling a story that continues on from Modern Warfare 3.” The ending of MW3 left a lot of stakes that were not relatable anymore, so it could not be realistic. And so many people did not get a chance to play the originals and would have to be caught up on all the aspects of the game.
• What makes it Modern Warfare is that it is a modern game that has events that can happen. “We had too reboot.”
• “We have a lot of other returning characters as well” but “new re-imagined versions of those characters.”
• “We talked about some radical casting ideas for the characters.”
• There is enough differences that it is not the same original Modern Warfare story and overall feeling to the actors makes it new and modern.
• “We do not want to spoil who comes back.”
• The experience designing this game has been “awesome.” The team has “evolved and grown” with “new blood and old blood.” “The team making the game is truly like a squad. We fight together. We care so much about this thing.”
• “This has been the easiest development of my career because of how energized people have been towards the same goal” – Minkoff, who has worked on many games over his career.
• “We had one level that was not testing very well. It did not have the player agency, but it just did not have the gameplay core. And this one designer was like this is not working and he went and ripped everything apart and basically made it open world, many different overlapping paths, all sorts of new weapons you can find…like he drastically changed it. This is everything. Having people like that, who throw themselves in it by making the game so much better, moments like that are absolutely priceless.”
• “This game is a game that is more authentic.”

In this exclusive Game Informer interview, Infinity Ward’s campaign gameplay director Jacob Minkoff and studio narrative director Taylor Kurosaki talk about leaving Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare behind, why they didn’t choose to create a Modern Warfare 4, and why you can expect more characters than just Price to return to the reboot.