Infinity Ward has quietly opened a new studio in Austin, Texas, to help it create “new and innovative experiences for Call of Duty.”
The Activision Blizzard studio has worked on multiple entries in the action franchise, but is best known for its work on the Modern Warfare sub-series.
As spotted by VGC, the new studio was name-checked in a number of job advertisements for roles in UI engineering and design.
“Infinity Ward has opened a brand new studio in Austin, TX. The studio will work on creating new and innovative experiences for Call of Duty and create state of the art technology to power them,” reads one listing.
“Our studio provides a safe, trusting, and empowering environment to unleash your creativity and help make the extraordinary.”
It’s unclear when Infinity Ward officially cut the ribbon on the new location, which joins its other studios and offices in California, Poland, and Mexico.
The latest entry in the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare III, was developed by Sledgehammer Games and launched earlier this month to critical apathy.
A recent report from Bloomberg claims the threequel was rushed out amid crunch conditions to plug a hole in Activision Blizzard’s release calendar, and was initially conceived as an expansion for Modern Warfare II.
Sledgehammer has since refuted those reports, with studio head Aaron Halon claiming the title was a “labor of love.”
According to Bloomberg, however, Modern Warfare III’s campaign mode was completed in just 16 months despite inefficiencies caused by the need to run ideas past execs at series custodians Infinity Ward and then incorporate feedback.
The Call of Duty franchise will now be moving forward under the stewardship of Microsoft after the Xbox maker completed its colossal $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
