Shelved Call of Duty Third-Person Game Was a "True, Gritty, Apocalypse Now Take on Vietnam"

Sledgehammer Games' shelved third-person Call of Duty game, developed under the working title Fog of War and set during the Vietnam War in Cambodia, was aiming for Uncharted-style gameplay and an Apocalypse Now-type tone. That's according to co-founder Michael Condrey, who opened up about the game in a new interview with Eurogamer.

"In your head you instantly can imagine an Uncharted style of game, but done in the lore of Call of Duty," he said. "You can see that. We built a prototype and it was cool. It was a true, gritty, Apocalypse Now take on Vietnam in an interactive way. We had a 15-minute demo, and there were some great moments."

As for why Sledgehammer Games originally targeted Vietnam for the game, co-founder Glen Schofield said it was "because it was scary, it was gritty." Portions of the game were set in the tunnels of Cambodia, he added.

Though we have seen various images from Fog of War, including the one above, no gameplay footage has been released. Schofield says the game was "different" and didn't have the same fast-paced, twitch gameplay that Call of Duty is known for. "Was it Call of Duty? Well, it said Call of Duty," Schofield said.

The story about what happened to the game is now well-known. As Modern Warfare developer Infinity Ward struggled after Activision fired founders Jason West and Vince Zampella, the publisher tapped Sledgehammer to help finish Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. It was a tough decision to abandon Fog of War, but working on Modern Warfare 3 was an "opportunity we just couldn't pass up," Condrey said in another interview.

Regarding Sledgehammer's current project, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Condrey said his company knew from the beginning that it wanted to innovate in a meaningful way with the game. Thinking about what its plans were for what would become Advanced Warfare, Condrey said, "We want to change this thing," referring to the Call of Duty series.

The major year-over-year innovation for Advanced Warfare is its superhuman exoabilities, provided to players through an exosuit that characters can wear. Wearing the suit, players can rip doors off cars, jump high through the air, and climb walls using magnetic gloves. For more on how these abilities work, check out GameSpot's hands-on preview of Advanced Warfare.

Set to launch November 4, Advanced Warfare is coming to Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC--but not Wii U.

Eddie Makuch is a news editor at GameSpot, and you can follow him on Twitter @EddieMakuch