GameCentral speaks to one of the creators of this year’s new Call Of Duty, about the influence of Breaking Bad and the Xbox One’s resolution.
CLICK HERE FOR OUR REVIEW OF CALL OF DUTY: ADVANCED WARFARE
It might not be quite what you’d expect, given the nature of the games they make, but everyone we’ve ever met connected to Call Of Duty has been really nice. There are three separate studios working on the series now (Infinity Ward, Treyarch, and new team Sledgehammer Games) and no matter who it is they always turn out to be amongst the most enthusiastic and open of any developer we speak to.
That’s certainly been the case with Sledghammer founders Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey, who we’ve spoken to multiple times through the production of Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Our final chance came after completing the single-player campaign, at which point we were able to discuss the completed game at length with Condrey (don’t worry, there are no spoilers).
We quizzed him on everything from the resolution of the Xbox One version, to the moral implications of a Vietnam War game, and how Breaking Bad influenced Advanced Warfare. We hope you’ll find his answers as interesting as we did…
[The interview took place just after Condrey has hosted a brief demonstration on how Advanced Warfare's loot system works]
GC: I love to see that mix of enthusiasm and fear in a developer’s eyes, when they demo a new game. You wouldn’t believe how often I get some dead-eyed producer who’s just glad the project is finally over.
MC: [laughs] I think this is an intensely personal project for the studio, right? Our chance as a studio to lead the biggest franchise in the industry, and I think it’s safe to say that we have a bit of something that we want to prove to fans and… man, we’ve never worked this hard on something. And it’s an honour really to be given a shot.
But, yeah, you feel a little vulnerable on the eve of sharing it. You hope… we left nothing on the table. I know how hard the development team worked. So yeah, you just hope – deep down inside – that fans will love it. Because that’s why we do this, right? We do it for the fans, to create something you’re proud of, that you look back on and say: ‘Yeah, I made that game’.
GC: Is that really why you do it, for the fans? That’s not just a PR line.
MC: No, not at all. I gotta tell you. I worked really hard on every game I worked on, right? I’ve been working on games for almost 20 years and there’s nothing worse than having a game come out that you’ve put that much time into, and that much personal sacrifice into, and have it not be well received. For whatever reason. That really cuts. It takes too much personal sacrifice to make these things, so when you put it out there you want it to be something you’re proud of.
I look back now on Dead Space, I’m really proud of what we did there. Given all the circumstances I’m proud of what we did on MW3 [Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3]. I would love for this to be the Sledgehammer home run game and for people to be talking about it for years to come, in the same way that as a fan I talked about Modern Warfare – the original COD4.
GC: I do sometimes wonder what a thankless task it must be to make some games. The ones that aren’t commercial hits or fall just short of greatness. They take just as much time and effort to make, but just one failure can often mean disaster for a company.
MC: I love what we do, it’s this really incredible mix of really creative, artistic people and some of the smartest, most analytical engineers. The dynamic of the team is amazing. I can’t imagine not doing this. But certainly, as you’ve seen in the last 20 years, with the console transitions and as consumer tastes change franchises that we’ve known and loved… some of my favourite franchises just don’t exist anymore.
GC: What would they be, out of interest?
MC: These are games I consider to be really great – and maybe they make a comeback and maybe they don’t – but I think about Medal Of Honor, for example. I think about Sly Cooper, I think about… when was the last time you got excited about Ratchet & Clank? These were phenomenal games. Go back even further with something like Mega Man…
GC: I saw the news that GOG.com are bringing back X-Wing and TIE Fighter. I used to love those, but that’s a whole genre that doesn’t exist today!
MC: Oh really? I haven’t seen that. And I think of publishers, big companies… whether it’s 3DO, Midway, Atari, that were really… So I look at film I think about how does James Bond resonate for 60 years? How does Batman resonate for 75 years? How do these iconic franchises stick around and maintain their relevancy? And I think there’s a place for that in video games too. But certainly for me I think about the personal commitment from the team and the personal sacrifice everyone makes to deliver something great and boy, yeah… you get nervous! It’s an anxiety that’s both exciting and vulnerable.
GC: What’s the reward for you at the end of the day from fans? Because even when gamers like stuff that doesn’t usually stop them from being any less cruel and vitriolic. Or is there nice fanmail that we don’t see on Twitter?
MC: Oh yeah, there is. It’s true that… we had the first livestream today and Twitter was amazingly positive. And that sentiment’s really nice. There’s passion in the Call Of Duty fan community unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and by and large that passion is expressed in a really healthy and productive way. Of course you get some that can’t, but I tell you what… I would take all of it rather than the opposite. Which would be to have nobody that gets excited about your game in anyway.
I tend to want to believe that the people who are having a hard time expressing their passion – and maybe sometimes it comes out less constructive than you’d want – they’re still wanting something great out of your game.
GC: I don’t want to get onto the subject of you-know-what, but you’re right: they do care. But it seems the only way some fans know to communicate how important games are to their lives is through trash-talking, in all the multifarious ways that can be done today.
MC: Yeah, and I don’t think it’s isolated to games either. You see it across all forms of entertainment. To me, I separate the positive and constructive feedback, and you lump in people that I know are passionate but are just struggling to communicate. That has to be separated from the truly toxic sort of environments that are out there in lots of entertainment areas. I’ve got no time for that. That needs to go away. Music.. you see it in sports… I agree with you, I wish that didn’t exist in any form of entertainment.
GC: The thing that always gets me is if I talk to a stranger about games in a normal real-life situation, at the pub or a party or whatever, they’ll be hugely enthusiastic and start telling stories about their favourite game. You try to have that same conversation with a random stranger online and it’ll be only about what they hate and why your opinion is wrong. It’s as if the veil of anonymity makes it impossible to say anything positive.
MC: I definitely think the anonymity is a factor. You see it in politics, you see it with actors… I don’t do it very often but when you do try to reach out to somebody that’s struggling to communicate constructively they will turn around and have a dialogue. And that will end up being a lot more healthy than it will seem on a 144 character tweet, right? So I do think part of it is the anonymous nature of social media, I mean that’s just our world today. But by and large when you sit down and have a conversation with people that want to be heard it tends to be very healthy.
GC: Although of its course it’s great that you engage with your fans the way you do the one thing I worry is that that that leads to only giving them what they know they want, rather than something they didn’t realise they would enjoy. That’s something that concerns me about Easy Access and Kickstarter too. I want to see the creative expression of the developer, not a check list of fan demands. Especially if it’s filled with contradictory suggestions.
MC: You’re absolutely right. There’s a lot of subjectivity in creative entertainment spaces, and with a fanbase this big there’ll be opposing views in the same community. Any great game has a group of people with a strong vision for what they want to create. Dead Space was that for us. And I hope this is for us too.
We made some changes that came directly from the team, that we really were pushing hard on. But at the same time you do have to be aware of what’s worked well in the past, and what hasn’t worked so well. So you can’t be dictated by the community, but certainly I think a healthy partnership has made the game better for everyone.
GC: Would you ever push for something that you think fans will hate at first, but which you believe they’ll learn to love eventually?
MC: There’s been times where we’ve felt like something had the potential, and maybe was just an idea you had to bring people along with… I’ll tell you boost jump was one of those things for Advanced Warfare, it really was. And you might say, ‘Well, Condrey that’s just a PR answer’.
GC: I’m only thinking that.
MC: [laughs] But the truth is when we brought boost jump into Call Of Duty for the first time it challenged a lot of people. Internally at Sledgehammer, with some people that had been playing Call Of Duty for years; internal at Activision; focus testers… but you persevere and you push. You have this vision of something that you think is gonna get to where it’s gonna be pretty special.
Our boost jump started as a game mode. It was like Uplink, it was the boost jump game mode. And we saw it’s potential, and we saw the game-changing ways you could engage with it and we made the decision to make it the mechanic for the game for everything in multiplayer. And not everybody was on board with that, internal to the studio and internal to the company. They just weren’t ready for it yet. But with time and passion and polish I think we got people there.
It’s hard to get to greatness when you design by committee. But then I think of Jenova Chen, who was the creative vision behind the PS3 game Flower and… what was his big one?
GC: Journey.
MC: Journey! I listened to him talk at GDC and played that game, and thought: ‘That’s special. That was a personal vision’. That was a phenomenal project. So that has to be a part, like… and Advanced Warfare is that for us. It’s a balance, certainly. It’d be very hard to make a decision we know the fanbase is gonna hate, and hope that they adopt it. But we can push them. Spend an hour on my Twitter and you’ll see probably that 20 per cent of the Twitter responses think that boost jump and the exoskeleton are the wrong decision.
GC: Well, I think it was the right one. I knew it was working when I realised I was jumping off my seat a bit when I did it. That’s always a good sign.
MC: [laughs] We came right out of MW3, and that was a great learning experience for us, a lot of things we’re proud of there. But this is where the fans really became the catalyst for this game. Because it was clear that while they loved the game there was a distinct message about the need for innovation. And that message, that drove us. And we started these… I refer to them as game jams now. They’re not quite game jams but we had these prototype pods and we tried all these ideas and boost jump is one of the first ones that came back.
GC: The problem is fans, and journos, often say the want something new but they never know exactly what. But I guess in this case that nebulous push for change worked out.
MC: Our biggest balancing question was exactly what you said. Fans were demanding something new, a new way to play… change. Innovation, whatever you want to call it. But certainly nobody wanted us to break what made Call Of Duty great. There’s many things about this game that make it best in class, right? It comes from 10 years of studio work before us. So how do you figure out real change but not alienate people that have come to know and love it?
Here’s a curious thing for me: 10 million people playing every day. Are 70 per cent of people aligned with that good enough? That means you’re only alienating 3 million people! [laughs] That’s a lot of people, at what point do you go, ‘That’s just too many people?’ And with this one Activision said, and I’m serious about this, they said to push further than you’re comfortable with.
GC: I’m interested in the fact that you can’t really go back now, and not have boost jump. I assume you’ve at least vaguely hinted that Advanced Warfare is going to be an ongoing sub-franchise?
MC: Three years is a long time to invest in one creative setting. We had a lot of ideas left. There has been nothing official about what we’re doing next, except supporting DLC, but we certainly… I think Advanced Warfare has broader appeal than just this single game, to us.
GC: I also wonder how the other studios are going to handle it, because I imagine their settings will prevent them having the EXO even if they wanted it. Although I guess that’s not really your problem?
MC: [laughs] Well, I certainly can’t answer for the other studios. I’d like to think, in a humble sort of way, that we’ve set a pretty high bar this year. That will push them to do the best work that they can do, and the people that win are the fans again. Because it’s a shared community of Call Of Duty players. As you’ve seen, every year is critical to maintaining excitement in the franchise, and so yeah… we want this game to be recognised.
On a studio level we have a lot of hopes that it will be loved for what it is, and if other studios use it as a launching pad or take our ideas, or change it and create something equally great but different, as long as that community sticks together and is excited that’s great.
GC: I do wonder where the limits of the franchise are though. Second World War, modern day, and near future are now well established. And I think it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine space marines of some sort in the future…
MC: [laughs]
GC: But what about going backwards in time? The Korean War and Vietnam I guess would work. But what about the First World War? That’s difficult in terms of both mechanics and the difficult morality of the conflict. But then what about going further back and doing something like Sharpe, set during the Napoleonic War? Is Call Of Duty all warfare throughout the ages? Are those the sort of things that get discussed or are they ignored instantly because you can’t have machineguns?
MC: Well, no. It’s curious. I can only answer from my own personal tastes, this is my own personal opinion. But some of my favourite pieces of entertainment are set in World War II. Band of Brothers, I’m a massive fan of Band of Brothers? Did you see that?
GC: No. I’m afraid I don’t get much time for television. Although it was filmed in my home town.
MC: Really? But I think it’s well recognised as a great production. And I’m sure you’ve seen Saving Private Ryan…
GC: Oh yes.
MC: And that’s a great hero’s war, kind of the last that was recognised as a noble cause in a war. So yeah, I think a next generation game with the latest production values and robustness in a World War II setting like Band of Brothers would be amazing. Now, how would it play and how would the multiplayer work after the new movement set in Advanced Warfare? That’s a tougher question than I’ve had to tackle yet…
GC: This reminds me of that Simpsons joke, where Bart claims the only just wars are the American War of Independence, the Second World War, and Star Wars. I mean, I’m always uncomfortable playing a Vietnam War game.
MC: Yeah, yeah.
GC: You can still tell a story of course, it’s not like individuals weren’t being heroic and noble. But the politics are a very difficult thing to handle, I think.
MC: I remember one of the very first meetings we had when we started Sledgehammer five years ago, and we were meeting with the Call Of Duty franchise, and they always talked about it being exactly that. It’s about a squad with a hero’s journey. Like, a noble cause. Vietnam was considered an American war, right? On a global level it wasn’t viewed as a noble cause necessarily, so how do you really capture that essence of a narrative that’s built around the greater good?
GC: So of course the plot in Advanced Warfare is the first time the story has entered a sort of moral grey area. Some of the stuff the villain says sounds quite reasonable out of context.
MC: We talked a lot about what we saw as an opportunity to really have a new focus on narrative, or at least a Sledgehammer focus on narrative. To really drive a story arc with characters that you wanted to invest time in. We always reference the resurgence of TV in the United States right now, as like the third golden age of TV. You don’t want watch a lot so it may be somewhat lost on you, but shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones and Mad Men and True Detective.
Phenomenal television right now, and it’s really all driven by really powerful character attachment. You become emotionally attached to the journey these characters are on, and we wanted that to be something that was reflected in this story. Where he’s talking about democracy, it was very specifically designed as part of his arc to have you stop and have that exact reaction. That this is a complex character who on one hand you think is the bad guy but on the other hand, as you say, it’s hard to argue with what he’s saying.
GC: But what were you reasons for wanting that in the game, was it primarily for character development or did you just want to air that view in some way?
MC: We certainly, as a studio, we weren’t trying to make a political statement. But certainly I find myself attracted to some characters recently that have really been impactful for me. One of them was Breaking Bad. This is a high school chemistry teacher who got screwed out of money by his employer, developed cancer, and is worried about not having enough money to leave for his family. And he finds himself making meth and becoming the largest meth dealer, and at some point you know he’s become a bad guy – but you’re still pulling for him. And by the way you should watch this series too, because it’s phenomenal.
GC: I’m sure it is, but until they invent an extra day in the week…
MC: Well yes, I hear you there. [laughs]
PR guy: Me too!
MC: But I find that narrative, I saw it again in Game Of Thrones, where you have these characters who do despicable things yet at the core of their essence there’s something that draws you to them and allows you to relate them to. And you even end up agreeing with them to some degree.
GC: And yet as you say that it’s interesting that Call Of Duty used to be famous for its controversial set pieces, things like No Russian. But there hasn’t been anything like that in years. Has that come down from Activision?
MC: No, and I’m not dodging your question here, I’m being sincere. But at the rate that these games develop, and our focus; I’m not sure what conversations Treyarch had about Black Ops II or what conversations IW had about Ghosts…
But the opening of Black Ops II, there were some moments there. But for us, who we are at Sledgehammer, our compass heading… we wanted a take on this game that was really not about gratuitous violence or swearing or anything. I mean you’ve played the campaign now?
GC: Yes, I mean that’s why I ask. As you say, there was nothing gratuitous like that at all. And I wonder if that’s part of the attempt to be taken more serious in terms of storytelling?
MC: Yeah, I think to a degree it is. But I know for us we never discussed it, it was never a discussion abut, ‘We need a controversial moment’.
GC: In terms of gameplay though I do have two misgivings. One is that the story mode really doesn’t feel much like the multiplayer. There’s surprisingly little use of the boost jump and the other mechanics that make the multiplayer seem so fresh.
MC: I think there was a conscious decision… in the single-player side we always talked about Advanced Warfare, and the name itself came from what started out as the advanced soldier. We always said, ‘OK, you are the advanced soldier. You are the solider of tomorrow’. And we always aspired to that being a much broader sort of offering. It wasn’t just a boost jump and movement set. And so for that everything from the augmented reality to the interactions with the vehicles to new weapon types, and then of course to the EXO; we were able to do things there with mag gloves and the repel mechanic that you saw…
GC: It’s all good stuff but if you only played the story mode, and there are people that are like that, you’d think that while it was certainly a good Call Of Duty it wasn’t necessarily a particularly innovative one.
MC: I’d be happier if they said there’s lots of innovation in all of the modes, because if you look at it holistically you’d say there’s a lot in there. But it’s definitely more situational to the level and the mission you’re in. As opposed to the multiplayer, which is really systematised. You have to have systems that work through the whole experience. So in campaign we loved the moments where we take the EXO away, where you fall through the [spoiler redacted] or in the opening of Bio Lab where your chopper has been EMPed and you start on the run. Those are powerful moments, but wouldn’t translate well to MP [multiplayer] as a system.
I guess I’m not answering your question particularly well, but I’m hoping that fans will see a lot of innovation on both sides. I hope! [laughs]
GC: Oh sure, I mean there is innovation there, especially compared to recent entries, but I just found it surprising you didn’t make more use of the movement mechanics from the multiplayer.
MC: The teams, the multiplayer and single-player teams, both started day one, both with the same charter and the same goal. And a lot of cross-sharing, but both had the ability to craft their experience for what they wanted to accomplish in their mode. So hopefully it feels like a natural fit together.
But it came up, I remember midway through development we had to keep saying, ‘No, the campaign is about the advanced soldier. This isn’t Call Of Duty EXO’. This isn’t an EXO game. The advanced soldier in the campaign is about much more than just boost jump. We wanted to bring new ways to play, to surprise fans. Whether that’s through vehicle experiences, or new EXO abilities. So yeah, that was a conscious decision. And it will be curious to see which resonates as the biggest change.
GC: No quite, and of course that’s just my opinion. I just spoke to another journalist who thought the exact opposite. I mean he’s wrong of course…
Both: [laughs]
GC: Sorry, are you okay for time? I’m taking up a lot of your time here.
MC: No, go ahead. I love these conversations.
GC: The other issue, and this relates back to my questions about how far you can push the setting, is that a lot of the levels did have very familiar backdrops. Personally I’ve battled across a lot of ship decks in my time in Call Of Duty, a lot of Arctic levels, a lot of forests and laboratories. You didn’t have any oil rigs in your game, but the rest were all quite familiar in at least concept.
MC: [laughs] You’re right. Again, it’s an interesting challenge. I worked on the James Bond franchise in my previous career…
GC: I shouldn’t interrupt you, but you guys do love your James Bond. I can’t believe you found something worthwhile to steal from The World Is Not Enough!
MC: [laughs] That was my first Bond game, actually.
GC: Oh, really? But that was where it came from surely? The bit where the boat dips under the water?
MC: Yeah, yeah. But James Bond is a good example and Batman too. Like, what made The Dark Knight so impressive? It’s still Batman, with Bat-gadgets and a Bat-vehicle and still the same universe. But it was their take, it was a unique view on a more gritty version of Batman. I would offer the same thing for Daniel Craig’s first Bond movie, right? Prior to that Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day was wrestling mechanical arms… remember that movie?
GC: Unfortunately I do.
MC: [laughs] So, we wanted to bring you to iconic locations that were different. And I can say that we’re the first Call Of Duty game to take down the Golden Gate Bridge, for example. [laughs]
GC: I had to process that for a second to check. It’s certainly not the first time in movies.
MC: In a lot of films this year, right? I think Godzilla took it down, Planet of the Apes took it down. But in Modern Warfare 3 we went around the world, we blew up the Eiffel Tower, we blew up Berlin, we went to the subway in London… these were all big iconic locations. In this game we tried to anchor it on well known or believable locations like the Golden Gate or Greece. As well as to try and throw in some places that you’ve never been before. With the idea that it would be our take on it.
GC: Would you ever consider having a smaller scale threat in a future game? Because that’s an easier way to get more character depth and even James Bond isn’t saving the world every time.
MC: You’re absolutely right. I think there’s enough creative liberties within the Call Of Duty franchise to not put any absolutes on it. If it’s fun, if the fan’s love it, if the production values are high, if it’s a robust offering – man at the rate this industry is changing, at the rate that fan appetite for different experiences is evolving, I don’t know what would be out of bounds.
In my opinion, and I’m just one of the many, many developers on the franchise, there are things that would be more probable than others. I think the World War II to the near future eras are fascinating and relevant. I’d be hard-pressed to see a Call Of Duty: Civil War, but who knows?
The one thing that’s always resonated with me in Call Of Duty is… I’ve always really enjoyed the World War II series but Call Of Duty 4, the original Modern Warfare, was so ripped from the headlines. As a gamer I distinctly remember watching CNN and seeing the lights over Baghdad and AC-130 videos and then playing it. That made it so relevant and interesting. And gave me that suspension of disbelief, that I’m gonna be that Tier 1 hero soldier… capturing that lightning in the bottle is interesting.
GC: Of course at the moment it’s ISIS that’s in the news in that capacity, but could you ever imagine making a game where you’re fighting them? The Nazis are the only real-world villains Call Of Duty has ever had, but ISIS seem almost as unequivocally evil – where almost the entire world is against them. And yet it seems to me personally that it would still be strange to have them as an enemy in a game.
MC: Again, I’m fearful of painting a picture for the franchise. But just from my personal opinion Call Of Duty has always been a setting that is grounded but is an alternate universe. In our game, in Modern Warfare 3, the World Trade Center events hadn’t happened. Like, we’re not trying to depict actual today. And I think the tragedies going on around the world in the areas of genocide and ISIS would be hard to make a game out of. But again that’s just my personal opinion. I wouldn’t be confident making a game out of it.
GC: I don’t think I’d be comfortable playing it either. And yet when you read about what they’re doing to civilians and so on you’re filled with such disgust you want to see harm come to them in real life, let alone in a video game.
MC: It’s a really interesting question. But just me personally I like to view entertainment as an escape, when I go to see a film that I really want to enjoy I want to be suspended from the current world and be given an outlet to a journey that I wouldn’t have in my normal life. And I think for me that’s what games are.
GC: And yet do you not worry that games like Call Of Duty encourage people to think that war is fun, to think that violence is a reasonable reaction to international politics? I’m sure that’s not what you intend, but it must be a concern.
MC: I would hope that’s not the takeaway. I think our filter always is how do we tell a great story and how do we make it entertaining, as a form of entertainment. And that may seem like a clichéd answer, but really it comes down to being a gamer and enjoying that sort of social and competitive nature of gaming.
And then wanting to be a storyteller, I think that’s really in Sledgehammer’s pedigree. It’s something we tried to pull off with Dead Space, and it’s something we wanted to pull off here in a compelling way. This is entertainment, it’s not a simulation and it’s not a political statement.
GC: OK, well from a real world controversy to a very specifically games-related one: resolution.
MC: [laughs] I can tell you the frame rate is rock solid on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, 60 frames per second. That’s kind of the heart and soul of Call Of Duty. You’ve probably heard that for years, right? PS4 runs at 1080p and Xbox One runs at 1080 scalable. Which will scale from 1360 all the way up to true 1080. So 1360×1080 up to 1920×1080.
GC: Is that dependent on the game mode?
MC: That’s dependent on the performance hit of the scene…
GC: Oh, so it’s changing in real-time?
MC: In real-time, yes. On a frame by frame basis. So Xbox One at times will run at true 1080 and sometimes it’ll run at 1360×1080 and scale in between those two marks. Its minimum threshold is 1360×1080 but the majority of time it runs above that. And 1360×1080 as the low bar is 50 per cent higher resolution than Ghosts at 900.
GC: Oh, that seems very clever. I’ve never heard of that before. And we’ve been playing on Xbox Ones with the multiplayer here [PlayStation 4s were used for the single-player – GC] and I don’t think anybody’s noticed any variation.
MC: Somebody will tell you they see it. My old eyes don’t but it’s still a big advancement for us.
GC: But that’s very interesting. Because of course the big conspiracy at the moment is that Microsoft are leaning on developers to lower the resolution on the PlayStaiton 4 version to maintain parity that way. But that’s obviously not happened here, even though you have a DLC deal with Microsoft.
MC: It’s not something I’ve heard of at a Sledgehammer level.
GC: Have you ever heard of anything like that happening anywhere in the industry?
MC: In my experience of developers we all want to get every ounce of power out of those systems, and so Microsoft has helped push and leant support and helped make the game the best it could be. But no, it’s certainly not a conversation I’ve ever been a part of.
GC: Well let’s leave it there. I’m sorry to take up so much of your time, but you should try not being so interesting next time.
MC: [laughs] That’s fine man, I enjoy it.
GC: Thanks very much.
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