Call of Duty goes RPG? Infinity Ward seeks open-world RPG developers

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Is Call of Duty changing genres and moving into the RPG world? A job posting has the community guessing.

Indications suggest that we may soon see a change in strategy for the genre-defying first-person shooter Call of Duty.

Call of Duty role-playing game?

For the longest time, CoD developers have remained largely true to their genre and gameplay. Since the first Call of Duty in 2003, not too much has changed in the gameplay mechanics. Of course, new features were added here and there, such as sliding, aiming via rear sight or modifying weapons, but the core of the game always remained a classic first-person shooter. However, that could change in the future.

A job posting on Infinity Ward’s own company website has the community sitting up and taking notice. The company is looking for an employee who has experience in the area of “narrative and cinematic experience in an open-world role-playing game”. Interested candidates should also be able to master “story, characters, lore and world building”, in addition to which writers for quest design and “non-linear narratives in open-world games” are sought. The job posting has since been taken offline. The position has already been filled and is therefore no longer available, they say. It is not clear to what extent the position is related to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, which will be released on 28 October.

DMZ Mode or Loot Shooter?

The job description would also fit any role-playing game. Does Activision want to focus more on the story of CoD in the future and possibly implement a character system? There were first hints of a game mode with inventory similar to Escape from Tarkov a few weeks ago. Of course, it is also possible that Infinity Ward is working on a project that has nothing to do with Call of Duty. However, this seems very unlikely considering that the studio has never developed a game outside of the CoD franchise.

We can only speculate about what the open-world game might look like in the end. A leveling system in connection with a loot shooter à la Destiny 2 or The Division would be conceivable. As CoD leaker TheGhostOfHope shared on 13 June, the DMZ mode will be postponed to 2023, but whether there is a possible connection with the job posting and the development status of the DMZ mode is unclear.