The Call of Duty series legend who helped shape the Black Ops games into some of the most iconic entries in the franchise, has announced his new project.
In an announcement earlier today, Treyarch veteran David Vonderhaar unveiled Bulletfarm, his new studio. The outfit is already developing a new game set in an original universe, but while Vonderhaar's CV is filled with the competitive gameplay of the Call of Duty games he spent 18 years making, this new effort will be markedly different.
Today's announcement confirms "an emphasis on co-operative gameplay," a notable departure from Call of Duty, and aims to be "more intimate and relatable" than the games Vonderhaar is best known for. It'll maintain a first-person perspective, but the studio head says that it'll "showcase [a] passion for rich characters [and] more intimate storytelling."
Even more intriguing is the fact that Vonderhaar has partnered with Chris Cowell, who's worked with him on the Black Ops series since 2010 across a number of design and audio roles. It's not uncommon for developers from the same studio to strike out together, but it's comparatively more common for those developers to make such an apparent departure from the games that they're most experienced in making. Take the team behind The Finals, for example - former Battlefield devs, they didn't originally intend to make another FPS, but eventually decided that their expertise meant they didn't have much of a choice.
Still, sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks, and I'll be interested to see what an intimate, character-focused, co-op effort looks like when it's infused by Call of Duty DNA.
