300 developers are working on Black Ops 2

If Black Ops 2 isn't the greatest Call of Duty game ever, it won't be for lack of trying; Activison has 300 staff on the job.

"There’s over 250 people at Treyarch, but there’s over 300 people working on the project," studio head Mark Lamia told VentureBeat.

"We do have contractors and test teams that aren’t part of the company. Those others aren’t actually employees of Treyarch. But there’s over 300 people working on the game right now."

Lamia said both the single-player campaign and multiplayer are "pretty big and ambitious", but also noted that "they really are creating another game with the Zombies there", explaining the need for such a large team.

For such a massive undertaking, Treyarch isn't averse to sharing resources with the other Call of Duty teams.

"We actually do open up anything from our side that they can have access to, but they have their own team with their own creative work," Lamia said of Activision's internal studios.

"Whether it’s inside of the Call of Duty franchise or, frankly, some other area of essential technology or whatever other area - if there are things that teams can access or leverage, then they do.

"For example, the facial rig and the performance capture was something that we worked with Activision’s central technology team on quite a bit. There’s a lot of learnings there that can be applied to other teams."

Speaking of other Activision teams, Lamia noted that Treyarch and Infinity Ward share certain values across the franchise, even as they pull in different creative directions.

"I think the desire to make sure, particularly, that the multiplayer game runs at 60 frames per second and is fast-paced and precise," he suggested.

"The cinematic nature of the game, I think, is sort of signature for the series. For every game that we’ve made, or Infinity Ward or some of the other developers have made, that’s an important aspect of it."

Guess what day Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 comes out? It comes out on November 13, for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, even if you live under a rock.