Call of Duty: Ghosts started as 'Modern Warfare 4'

Call of Duty: Ghosts executive producer Mark Rubin explains how the game originally started as a Modern Warfare 4 concept, but evolved into being an entirely separate (but similar) continuity.

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In the weeks leading up to the Call of Duty: Ghosts reveal, fans tended to use "Modern Warfare 4" as shorthand for the unnamed project. Apparently that title wasn't just for fans, as executive producer Mark Rubin says the game actually started as a direct sequel, before the studio changed the name.

When Infinity Ward was pitching new ideas, it threw out ideas ranging from post-apocalyptic to what Rubin playfully nicknames "Space Guns on Jupiter." The idea of familiarity was well-liked among the team, though.

"People felt really strongly that they liked the way you as a player can connect to the world you know day-to-day," Rubin told Game Informer "So the idea of staying modern became a key point. Let's not do 'Space Guns on Jupiter.' Let's do real weapons that we know in a world we're familiar with. And then it became, do we do Modern Warfare 4? And that was the game for a little while. Because we said, we'll stay modern, we'll do Modern Warfare 4! But then it was like, well, we kind of finished the story in Modern Warfare 3. That arc is done." This echoes statements the studio made at the time when finishing MW3.

From there, he said, the studio went back to considering a post-apocalyptic setting. Still in the mindset that it had to follow established continuity, they started to imagine that sometime after MW3, nuclear weapons had been set off around the world and decimated it. Regardless of what name was used, that would have more directly followed the events of the current series.

Ultimately, though, it came to the conclusion that with an entirely new engine, it could do somewhat of a reboot. As a result, Ghosts is set in the same time frame as the Modern Warfare series, but in an entirely different continuity. Rubin called this the "Earth 2" of Call of Duty, playing on the DC Comics book that features alternate versions of famed superheroes.

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 12, 2013 3:00 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Call of Duty: Ghosts started as 'Modern Warfare 4'.

    Call of Duty: Ghosts executive producer Mark Rubin explains how the game originally started as a Modern Warfare 4 concept, but evolved into being an entirely separate (but similar) continuity.

    • reply
      September 12, 2013 3:05 PM

      New packaging, same product. Losers. - Megatron

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      September 12, 2013 3:29 PM

      Haters gonna hate... and whatnots. Buying the shit out of this. PC Day 1.

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      September 12, 2013 3:40 PM

      AKA Modern Warfare 4 BUT WITH DOGS

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      September 12, 2013 9:01 PM

      Lol fall of dooty. I feel bad for ppl still eating this shit up. Cod died after cod2. 4 was the exception but truly after 4 it became the cash cow.

      You guys know we used to get map packs and extras for free right? They were called patches.

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        September 12, 2013 9:24 PM

        Did you seriously just say "fall of dooty"?

        Seriously, seriously?

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          September 13, 2013 1:26 AM

          Indeed I did sir. Cause that's what it is dooty falling from activisions brown eye.

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        September 13, 2013 2:28 AM

        I feel bad for people who actually manage to feel bad about me paying money for games that I think are awesome and that I enjoy greatly. You should probably save your sympathies for people in a little worse position than the guys who are able to pay premium price for a game yearly.

        The reason CoD is a "cash cow" is that it sells well. If you want to blame someone for publishing the same game time and time again, how about aiming your sights at sports games? At least each CoD includes a entirely new SP campaign and a set of new MP maps, and those are not exactly cheap to produce.

        There were some games that added content for free back in the day, and there are still some games / companies that add content for free. Then there are companies that don't. This is quite fine, as guess what - you're still not forced to buy anything.

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        September 13, 2013 2:51 AM

        I will continue to pay for CoD until some other dev gets close-combat multiplayer gunfights right. Which they don't. I don't want to support a lack of innovation, but it's not until Titanfall (by the CoD guys) that I see a true alternative.

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        September 13, 2013 4:19 AM

        Because as we all know, only CoD has DLC maps and extras. EA would never consider this with BF.

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          September 13, 2013 7:25 AM

          You can't compare. BF is king. And worth the money.

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      September 13, 2013 7:40 AM

      Headshot city!

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