In 20 years of Call of Duty baton-passing, Modern Warfare 3 presents a unique opportunity for persnickety fans like myself: Sledgehammer has been entrusted a direct sequel to Infinity Ward’s Modern Warfare 2 reboot just a year after its release, with the same engine and full backwards compatibility with MW2’s guns and attachments.
I imagine this is a pretty big deal for Sledgehammer. The Bay Area studio has spent a decade playing third fiddle to its more senior Infinity Ward and Treyarch collaborators, serving as a support studio when necessary and garnering a reputation as the “offbeat” CoD studio with Advanced Warfare (2014), (2017), and (2021)—all entries that tried to reach beyond where was, and either fell flat or didn’t make a significant mark in series canon. Simply by being a game, is the studio’s highest-profile project ever.
