Developer shake-ups can happen quite often in this industry, namely due to layoffs when a project doesn’t perform as well as expected. However, this is a rather surprising one, especially considering that Call of Duty: WWII has done all kinds of good business for Activision.
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Kotaku is reporting that the co-founders of Sledgehammer Games and directors of WWII, Michael Condrey and Glen Schofield, are leaving the company. This isn’t any sort of hasty departure, though, as they’ll be taking internal roles at Activision itself. Aaron Halon will take over for directing duties for the studio.
Activision confirmed the move, noting, “Following the incredible success of Call of Duty: WWII, Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey have decided to transition from their duties at Sledgehammer Games to new executive duties inside Activision.
“We thank Glen and Michael for their tremendous body of work on Call of Duty and look forward to continuing to collaborate with them in their new roles.
“These changes have created an opportunity to elevate one of the key leaders at the studio, Aaron Halon, to lead Sledgehammer Games. Aaron is a founding member of Sledgehammer Games and the natural fit to lead the team. He has over 20 years of industry experience and has played an instrumental role throughout the studio’s history. We congratulate Aaron and are thrilled about the future of Sledgehammer Games, which we believe has even bigger days ahead.”
Schofield and Condrey were vital to the build-up of WWII, taking part in a number of behind-the-scenes vignettes and interviews to produce hype for it. But they also played a big part in the development of Advanced Warfare, the team’s first individual Call of Duty project, which came out in 2014. Before that, the group worked alongside Infinity Ward on the best-selling Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Where the team will go from here is a mystery, although it’s still working on development of downloadable content for WWII, so we’ll see that in the months ahead, at the very least.
We wish Schofield, Condrey and Halon the best of luck in their new positions.
Call of Duty: WWII is available now for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.
