A glimpse at the third-person Call of Duty that was never to be

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare developer Sledgehammer Games was once lead developer on another project in the franchise - a third-person shooter set during the Vietnam War.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is what derailed the shelved game; offered the chance to work with Infinity Ward on the core series, Sledgehammer jumped at the chance. Later, it was chosen to be the third studio in a three-team annual release plan for Call of Duty, putting all other projects on the back burner.

The project is an open secret, with Activision copping to it back in 2010, and Sledgehammer saying it would love to revisit the cancelled game, but we've never actually seen anything of it.

Thanks to concept artist Eddie Del Rio that has changed. On his portfolio site the artist, whose CV includes Godzilla and Star Citizen, has shared a few images from his work on the project way back in 2009.

You can take a look below. It looks like Sledgehammer was going for something quite dark - which maybe you'd expect, as the conflict is one of the most controversial in modern history.

Thanks, IGN.