Making History

How a team of futurists went back in time to make the most intriguing Call Of Duty in years

- Nathan Brown

 This time, as the saying goes, it’s personal. It’s the end of our interview, and Glen Schofield, studio head at Sledgehammer Games, has asked us to wait while he gets something from his office. He re-emerges with a picture frame: inside are the medals his grandfather received for his service in World War II. There are medals for each of the theatres in which he served; there are Bronze and Silver Stars, and a Purple Heart. In the centre of the frame is a picture of one being pinned to his uniform by a commanding officer. It’s taken from a distance, and side-on – an unusual angle, Schofield says, but not for this CO, who insisted on being shot from his best side.

This is Call Of Duty: World War II in microcosm. Schofield and his fellow Sledgehammer studio head Michael Condrey made their name as futurists: from the alien horrors of Dead Space to the boost-jumping exoskeletons of Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the pair have spent the past decade sketching futuristic universes into existence from scratch. Now, they’re returning to the past, to the conflict on which Call Of Duty’s reputation was formed. It’s a process that has turned them from futurists into historians; it is a job that has involved a couple of years of meticulous research of one of the most bloody conflicts in history. But there is also an emotional connection, a personal one, a family one – something felt not just by Schofield, but by most of the studio, and many of the game’s likely players.