A former developer at Raven Software has shed light on a cancelled ‘campy and experimental’ Call Of Duty: Zombies spin-off.
Call Of Duty: Zombies has been a regular staple of the series since its inclusion in 2008’s World At War, but the mode has never been available separately on consoles.
Former Raven Software lead designer Michael Gummelt outed several cancelled projects on LinkedIn earlier this year, with one of them being an ‘ambitious Call Of Duty: Zombies live service project’ which was cancelled in June 2012.
Gummelt has now shared more details about the project in an interview with YouTuber Glitching Queen, detailing how it would have opened with you fighting the zombie hordes in a gladiator arena inspired by Mad Max.
‘You’d start off as a gladiator basically, thrown into an arena to fight zombies,’ Gummelt said. ‘Think of like a Mad Max post-apocalyptic zombie arena where you would have to fight zombies as a gladiator.’
The game, which was codenamed Project Zed, would then see players ‘stage an escape’ from the arena with other players, as you navigate an open wasteland filled with zombies. ‘It was like Mad Max meets Call Of Duty: Zombies, in a way,’ he added.
A pitch document is also shown during the video, which describes it as an ‘expansion and evolution’ of the Zombies experience built on cosmetic microtransactions. Another bullet point on the document describes it as ‘fun, campy and experimental’, in a similar vein to past zombie modes.
As for the reason why it was shelved, Gummelt explained how Treyarch was considering not doing Call Of Duty: Zombies anymore, which led to early work on this project at Raven.
Treyarch, however, apparently later changed their minds and didn’t want another zombies experience to potentially rival the studio’s own plans for Black Ops 2.
‘It’s unfortunate, I think it would have been fun,’ Gummelt added. ‘But, to look at it another way, you never would have gotten Black Ops 2, 3, and 4 Zombies.’
Footage of another cancelled Call Of Duty project from developer Neversoft leaked earlier this year, which was titled Future Warfare.
As for this year’s Call Of Duty, rumours suggest it will be set during the Gulf War and will be revealed before an Xbox Showcase in June.
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