In other words, the official party line is that Call of Duty fans shouldn't be nervous. Here's an edited transcript of the email interview with Wilson.
Above: Sledgehammer Games COO Andy Wilson joined in 2019.
GamesBeat: Sledgehammer had a number of departures when the founders left and started their own studios. How has it dealt with this or adapted to it? Did you have to take any unusual measures to get more people to stay, stabilize the studio, and then grow its numbers again?
Andy Wilson: Our industry tends to see a lot of movement in general. The gaps between projects usually coincides with a larger number of people deciding to make a change. That said, the story of the last year for us has been one of solid growth. We're not looking in the past. We are excited about where we're headed and our focus is on looking forward. In my case, since joining SHG, my focus has been squarely on the future and so one of the first things we did was celebrate the studio's 10th anniversary to launch an initiative called 'Decade II.' The point was to treat that moment as the first day of the second age of Sledgehammer Games and not just a celebration of what came before, because for all the studio's success, we could see there was so much we could do going forward: culturally for certain, but also in terms of structure, the move to more than one project, the continued growth of the team in Melbourne, and so on. The great thing about Decade II, Day One was that was actually the end-point of months of solid work to establish a clear plan for the future. The result is a team and studio with a clear roadmap and an enormous opportunity ahead of it, with a lot of great new team members signing up for the journey. Even since California and Australia enforced full remote-working, we've had well over 2,000 applications for our open roles. The icing on the cake is that we've also seen numerous people return to the studio of their own volition and their feedback on the positivity taking place here has helped to validate a lot of the thinking.
GamesBeat: Are you folks hiring? What kinds of jobs? What locations?
Wilson: Sledgehammer Games is entering a period of growth across both of our main studio locations: Foster City, California and Melbourne, Australia. We're now a multi-project studio and we're looking for a substantial number of new team members to join us. We're looking across every discipline and various levels of seniority. It's a pretty exciting time for our studio.
GamesBeat: How many people do you have?
Wilson: We're currently over 200, and we plan to add upward of 100 new Hammers over the next year.
Above: The landing at Omaha Beach in Call of Duty: WWII.
GamesBeat: Why have the different locations in the first place?
Wilson: There are huge benefits to having studio locations in different parts of the world. First, it opens up multiple talent pools for us and gives us access to people who we otherwise might not be able to bring onboard. Then there's the amazing diversity of thought you get from having one team spread over different cultures and countries. We believe that's essential to make truly global games. Another important consideration is the way games are released and played now. The launch is really just the start, as games are being played around the clock, it's a great advantage to be able to cover more of the 24-hour cycle for things like live operations and support. Finally, there's a certain momentum you gain from having the baton passed constantly between a team in one location finishing their day just as another is winding up for theirs. Play pokemon tcg offline.
GamesBeat: Are people still quite spread out beyond those two locations?
Wilson: We have always had people who work remotely. We decided long ago that we need to be accommodating when members of our team experience life changes that mean they would otherwise have had to leave Sledgehammer Games. We have also made a number of new hires since the stay at home orders came into force, so we're adding additional people to the team who won't be based at one of our permanent sites until sometime down the road.
Sledgehammer Games Call Of Duty 2020 Ps4
GamesBeat: How are you proceeding with the hiring, given the coronavirus impact on meeting in person?
Wilson: Obviously, you lose something from not being able to sit in the same room as a person you're interviewing, but we're lucky that technology has reached the point where the impact is relatively minimal. For instance, when I first emigrated to Canada in 2011, video calls back home were laggy and low-res, whereas now I can have an HD meeting with zero lag and tens if not hundreds of people in attendance. We're able to have substantive conversations through video conferencing software and although it's a little more awkward than in-person, we're all getting much better at it as the weeks go by. Humans adapt pretty quickly, and I think there's been a very quick acceptance that this is the new norm for the time being.
Despite 2020 being the year of delays, Activision Blizzard recently confirmed Call of Duty 2020 (rumored to be Call of Duty: Black Ops 5) is on track and set for release sometime this year. Last year's reported production troubles apparently haven't drastically affected the game's development.
The news comes from VentureBeat, who also spoke with Sledgehammer COO Andy Wilson about the studio's efforts.
Activision's Sledgehammer Games is currently launching a large-scale hiring venture to open two additional studios. It's part of a general overhaul to improve culture and productivity, and Wilson said they plan to hire roughly 100 new employees over the coming year.
There's a number of benefits to this approach, Wilson said:
.it opens up multiple talent pools for us and gives us access to people who we otherwise might not be able to bring onboard. then there's the amazing diversity of thought you get from having one team spread over different cultures and countries.
Finally, there's a certain momentum you gain from having the baton passed constantly between a team in one location finishing their day just as another is winding up for theirs.
So not only is Call of Duty 2020 production reportedly going smoothly, but Activision and Sledgehammer are planning for a bigger and better future for the series and the folks responsible for it. Even though we didn't see it mentioned during last week's Inside Xbox, we'd be surprised if CoD 2020 wasn't on next-gen systems as a crossover game, too.
The full interview is on VentureBeat. Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more Call of Duty news as it develops.
