Steve Fukuda and Zied Rieke reportedly tender resignations at Infinity Ward; lead environment artist Chris Cherubini, programmer Rayme Vinson also said to be out.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 developer Infinity Ward has been beset by high-profile departures since Activision fired studio head Vince Zampella and game director Jason West in March. With another day comes another batch of resignations at the studio, as Kotaku reports that lead designers Steve Fukuda and Zied Rieke have both tendered their resignations.
The departures are made all the more significant, considering Fukuda and Rieke were the only two remaining design leads on Modern Warfare 2, according to the game's credits. Last week, multiplayer lead designer Todd Aldermann revealed his departure from the studio. Aldermann was joined by fellow design lead Mackey McCandlish earlier this week.
It doesn't stop there, however. The gaming blog also reports that lead environment artist Chris Cherubini and programmer Rayme Vinson have also both departed Infinity Ward this week. According to Cherubini's LinkedIn profile, the artist has been with the studio since August 2004 and contributed to Call of Duty 2 through Modern Warfare 2.
Over the past several weeks, Infinity Ward has seen the departure of a number of other senior-level employees, including software engineer lead Francesco Gigliotti, senior animator Bruce Ferriz, and programmer Jon Shiring.
The departures come despite Activision's stated intent to reallocate Modern Warfare 2 bonuses previously intended for West and Zampella to "those employees responsible for the success of the game who remain employees of the company." However, disbursal will only come if Activision prevails in its counterclaim against West and Zampella's initial $36 million suit against the company.
As with previous departures, none of the aforementioned developers indicated whether they would be joining West and Zampella at their newly formed studio Respawn Entertainment. However, in an interview with GameSpot, the two ex-Infinity Ward heads emphasized that the new studio is staffing up in advance of its first large-scale project, which will be published through EA Partners.
Tom Magrino has covered the games industry since 2006. He's been compared to Steve Martin by Ozzy Osbourne and Daniel Craig by Tim Schafer. His voice, heard largely on GameSpot's podcast, recalls that of Kermit the Frog. It ain't easy bein' Magreen.
Modern Warfare 3 is currently in development by Infinity Ward with assisted development from Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. All in all, Modern Warfare 3 needs 3 development teams to get the job done; including all the MW3 weapons, perks, etc.
frick this EA. i have made up my mind not to buy EA games!! i am sorry, i like u as my developer...but EA is no buy...and NEVER BUY!!!
Corporate schmucks can put their management "skills" in their rears. Lol, bobby kothick is going down hard!
Ok, we all make a pact right now to boycott Activision. Thumbs up for yes, thumbs down for no.
Agree with the other comments that it is unbelievable how Activison destroys IP's. It's bad for gaming and it's bad corporate leadership. How does Kotick keep his job? He obviously has no clue about gaming or running a company.
Lol, a lesson Activison has to learn 3 times, and probably still won't get it. Being greedy only backfires. Greed killed Tony Hawk, Guitar Hero, and now CoD. You'd think after 2 big franchise downfalls due to their greed, they'd learn. I need to go to Activision HQ and get 25 kills and just nuke everyone there. IW has no lead designers left that were there for MW and MW 2. And they lost other leads here and there as well, all I can say is HA HA HA, and HA! EA is about to dominate on this, BC2 was underrated and miles better then MW2 anyways, but now with the actual IW leads working for EA under a new name, I can't wait to see what we'll get. And who knows, we might actually get good servers for once :O. (If I get thumb down ratings, it's only middle schoolers who suck Activision's small one for a living, and think CoD is the only game out there worth playing)
Shame IW collapsed. Although I'm kinda interested to see what Activision is going to do to Treyarch, considering their poster child is gone, and that Treyarch is the only "reputable" Call of Duty developer left. It's all just really disappointing if you ask me. Activision is a company that needs to die already for what they do to the consumer and their employees.
The ultimate example of how to try to have your cake and eat it, only for it to backfire, as if Activision did not make enough money in revenue from this game alone, they didnt need to go and completely ruin the franchise for no reason lol!
I'll for sure be buying the next Call of Duty as Treyarch is developing it :p I've enjoyed there games.
Funny how these Game websites are following this bs news on an overrated game company, if you can even call it news. Course I don't know why I find myself typing this and reading this dumb article.
sooo that means the rest of the map packs well at least the other promised map pack will not come out? or will they come out but be very poor standard of quality because of most of the best iw staff have left.
Maybe I am just crazy, but CODMW2 was a bit overrated, sure the game was good, but like halo nothing really groundbreaking. So what if they leave and continue to make boring shooters. I love this board though, first everyone complains about how big and ugly EA has gotten, now it is Activision, soon it will be EA again. Can't wait.
@wavey_gravey COD is over. Treyarch wont be able to keep the franchise at the standards that have been set by the IW-developed COD's so whats going to happen is Activision will run the franchise into the ground with poor sequels now and Respawn Entertainment will make a new COD-like game and start a new franchise. Activision has well and truly shot itself in the foot.
I think it would be ironic if Respawn started making Medal of Honor games since they are now under EA.....again.
they gonna whore out CoD just like they did tony hawk and rockband so maybe its good infinity ward dies and moves on to something else CoD dosent need yearly releases like a sports game.
I seriously hope everybody in Infinity Ward moves to Respawn, that is a very Talented team that should stick together without Activision.
@ Ghoulish_Visage This is the first time I've wished that I could thumb up more then once because you're exactly right.
Wow, Activision just got rid of the people who made them a multi-billion pound game series. Every company in the world will want them.
Next we will read that the janitors (uh, excuse me, "custodians") have now left IW too...
This is all music to my ears, IW is dismantling and moving on to greener pastures, and Acti gets a kick to the nuts. Now, if only Blizzard would see the light of day and break out of the merge...
I saw this coming far off. MW2 was an addictive disappointment to me. Now that I hear this news, I'm glad I got rid of the game only a week after finishing it. I looked at my game collection, and not a single Activision title lurks there...
it seems that IW will be dismantled by the end of the month, hope Activision is happy, because they destroyed a great studio... and killed the MWF franchise...
So does this mean there will be no one left to patch MW2 glitches? This could be serious... I mean the Javelin and Care Package glitches were bad enough, but IW patched them - but say IW is disbanded within a few months from now and they discover an absolutely game-breaking glitch and then another and another and the game becomes unplayable.
Games/series which Activision has milked and ruined - or in the words of Bobby Kotick "Exploit on a yearly basis" Crash Bandicoot Spyro The Dragon Tony Hawk Guitar Hero and now Call of Duty So how's that strategy working for you now?
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