Although you might've heard that Infinity Ward and Treyarch aren't the best of friends, at least one Treyarch employee holds no grudges.
In a recent MCV interview with Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar, he called Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare franchise "a huge inspiration." In short, the team saw MW2 as "an amazing benchmark" for Black Ops . We can't forget the scores IW's massive title pulled down in 2009, and although Treyarch's effort ended up trumping MW2 in terms of sales, Vonderhaar has plenty of respect for the competition. Said Vonderhaar:
"Every developer dreams of making the No.1 selling title in the history of gaming.
You want to make the biggest, strongest, highest-rated, most critically acclaimed and best-selling video game on the planet. We looked at Modern Warfare 2 and said: 'What an amazing benchmark, let's go get it'. It drives a lot of what we do everyday. It is a huge inspiration to us, and for us to even be in that league, that's fantastic."
Well, love it or hate it, when two studios go at the same franchise, you have to expect they will keep trying to top each other. And competition almost always begets quality, right? We have to admit, at least in terms of the single-player campaign, we were more satisfied with Treyarch's Black Ops , although the jury is still out amongst the hardcore fans when we factor in multiplayer.
So shouldn't we expect another step in the right direction when Modern Warfare 3 hits later this year? Wouldn't you expect Infinity Ward to now use Treyarch as a benchmark?
