Many rumors were circulating before the next "Call of Duty" game would be "Modern Warfare 4" prior to the big reveal and many fans were shocked by the announcement that "Call of Duty: Ghosts" would diverge entirely from prior entries in the series. Mark Rubin, executive producer at Infinity Ward, explains the decision process to switch settings in MCV:
"Not a hard decision, but a long decision...We don't get a chance when making a game to think about the next one until we are done actually making that first game...So when we finished Modern Warfare 3, we had this big brainstorming session that lasted for weeks...Everybody gets to come up with ideas of what we want to do, not just what game we want to do, but moments in games."
Rubin said the appeal of creating a brand new setting for the "Call of Duty" series was too much for Infinity Ward and the company wanted to continue making "Call of Duty" games, but create something completely new.
"The easy thing would have been--as we had finished the arc of Modern Warfare 1, 2 and 3--to start a new arc within that same universe. That was the first step. But due to a lot of the changes we wanted to make with this new world, it really dictated out that we needed to make something that wasn't Modern Warfare," Rubin said.
"Call of Duty: Ghosts" was written by Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar winning writer of "Traffic" and "Syriana." The game was one of the highlights of the Xbox One reveal that took place earlier this month. "Call of Duty: Ghosts" has also received lots of attention for including a dog squadmate into the series for the first time.
The game will be available for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC.