Call of Duty's Three-Year Dev Cycle Ensures Best Ideas Make It on Disc

The Call of Duty franchise's new, three-year, three-studio development cycle will not only lead to more impressive visuals, but also better gameplay. That's according to Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg, who says in a new interview that giving developers more time to hash out ideas ensures that every new installment will be a major step forward for the brand.

"That extra year of development time, particularly with the new consoles and the more powerful hardware, has really paid off thus far to iterate, innovate, and try new things," Hirshberg told Joystiq. "To find out which things didn't work and have the freedom to fail in the creative process, so what goes on the disc is the best ideas."

"The thing that the three-year development cycle allows is these games have gotten so ambitious, we're packing so many different modes of play onto the disc," he added. "The things that started off as flyers, like zombies or co-op became their own whole games."

The first Call of Duty title developed under the new structure is this November's Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, from Sledgehammer Games. The game pushes the Call of Duty series forward by introducing the exosuit, a device that gives players a range of super-abilities. Earlier this week, Sledgehammer Games finally revealed details about Advanced Warfare's multiplayer mode, and exosuit abilities play a major role.