Call of Duty Boss on Modern Warfare Remastered: "We Have to Sweat Every Pixel"

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare launches this fall, but it's not the only Call of Duty game coming. Bundled with special editions of Infinite Warfare is a remastered version of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that includes the entire campaign and ten multiplayer maps. Recently, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg discussed the development of this remaster, saying that the reputation of Call of Duty 4 meant that the remaster required a lot of care and attention.

Speaking to VentureBeat, Hirshberg described the Modern Warfare remaster as an ambitious project and the most valuable bonus ever included in a Call of Duty special edition. Whereas past Call of Duty games often launched with collector's editions that featured real-world items, Infinite Warfare comes with an entirely separate game.

"It's our biggest bonus content ever, our most valuable bonus content," he explained. "We've had collector's editions that have been creative and well-received. But this is taking the place of things in the past like night-vision goggles or GoPro cameras or Juggernaut refrigerators for your game room. This year we're offering an entire remastered, beautiful version of one of the greatest games of all time."

But since it's so ambitious, it obviously took a lot of effort to do. VentureBeat pointed out that it seems that developer Infinity Ward benefited from the change to a three-year development cycle: developers Treyarch, Sledgehammer, and Infinity Ward now each have three years to complete Call of Duty games.

Hirshberg confirmed that the lengthened cycle was essential to getting Modern Warfare Remastered done while also developing a fully fledged Zombies mode for Infinite Warfare: "Certainly we never would have been able to offer [Zombies] in the same collector's edition SKU alongside Modern Warfare Remastered if we didn't have that extra time to get this stuff right."

He continued, describing how the popularity of Modern Warfare meant that Activision and Infinity Ward had to take a lot of care when remastering the game. "Especially [with] something like Modern Warfare Remastered[,] you can't do that lightly. It's one of those games that's sort of carved into Mount Rushmore. We have to sweat every pixel, and that’s what the team has done."

There's a lot more from Hirshberg's interview over on VentureBeat.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare releases on November 4 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and purchasing premium editions starting at $80 will get you access to Modern Warfare Remastered. Recently, Activision announced Infinite Warfare's crazy Zombies mode, which you can read more about here.