Infinity Ward to become Exclusive Developer for CoD Franchise (UPDATED)

Infinity Ward has supposedly announced that they will be the exclusive developer of the CoD franchise after Treyarch releases Call of Duty 5. Next-Gen spoke with a former Activision Underground employee Monday who stated that Infinity Ward renegotiated its contract with Activision, thus giving it complete developmental control over the CoD franchise.

Treyarch will still be the developer behind the upcoming CoD5, but this renegotiation of the contract is linked to the closing of Activision’s Underground, according to the source who wished to remain anonymous.

Supposedly, CoD5 isn’t going to be an FPS but a third-person action adventure game that would have become a yearly franchise like the original FPS. If that were the case, Activision would be able to release two CoD titles a year – but contract renegotiations mean that no other Activision studio will be able to develop any CoD game except for Infinity Ward.

You can get more details on this by clicking through the link below.

Via: Next-Gen

***UPDATE***

Apparently this was just a rumor coming from a bitter ex-employee. According to Activision in a statement sent to Eurogamer, they have claimed that these allegations are false:

A spokesperson for the publisher told Eurogamer it was a total fabrication, and that Treyarch and Infinity Ward would still alternately create installments in the shooter series.

Good thing I said “supposedly” twice in my post.