Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has turned out to be a major disappointment, with its underwhelming and shockingly short campaign in particular having drawn widespread criticism. In the wake of poor reception for the first person shooter, recent report by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has also shed light on the its rushed development, with Sledgehammer Games reportedly having had to put together the single player campaign in the space of just 16 months (and not under the best working conditions).
In addition to that, another interest tidbit that the report has revealed is that Modern Warfare 3 was apparently not even the game Sledgehammer itself wanted to work on. As per the report, after development was wrapped up on 2021’s Call of Duty: Vanguard, the studio pitched a title codenamed Anvil to parent company Activision, which was supposed to be set in the same universe as and serve as a follow-up to 2014’s Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Apparently, some amount of work was put into the project, though before it could get too far in development, it had to be shelved, with Activision informing Sledgehammer that it would instead be working on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time that Sledgehammer Games has attempted to get a sequel to the fan-favourite 2014 title off the ground. In 2017, it was reported that before development began on Call of Duty: WW2, the studio’s first choice was to work on an Advanced Warfare sequel. Whether or not we will actually get to see Sledgehammer returning to that setting at some point in the future remains to be seen, but the studio will certainly be hoping that things are different from here on out, under the new ownership of Microsoft.