"We'll probably cancel" third-person CoD effort, admits Sledgehammer

Sledgehammer Games boss Glen Schofield has admitted it may end up cancelling its third-person Call of Duty title after Modern Warfare 3's release.

The new title from Sledgehammer was announced in March 2010 on the same day the Call of Duty business unit was reorganised following Jason West and Vince Zampella's firings from Infinity Ward, but has not been formally introduced.

The new studio has since been working with IW on Modern Warfare 3 for a release next month, but Schofield admitted to CVG it may not bring back the game following MW3's release.

"We'll probably cancel it," said Schofield. "They gave us the choice of: do you want to work on Modern Warfare 3, or do you want to continue working on this? And we really liked that.

"We liked what we were doing. It third person, probably set at a time that might have niched it too much. I bet that if we had kept going, within a month or two I probably would have switched the time period, but kept the gameplay. It had some really cool stuff."

For what it does next after Modern Warfare 3, Schofield says Sledgehammer is going alone.

"This game has allowed both Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games to hire, and we hired really strong teams, both of us. We needed to come together on this one, but since then we've both grown, we're both over 100 people now," he said.

"Initially we weren't fully functional because we had to learn a new engine. Now we have, I think the best thing that could happen for Activision would be for us to both go off and make our own game. Whether that's a Call of Duty game or not is up in the air. I plan to continue working on Call of Duty."

Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 8 for PS3, 360 and PC.