Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare prepped for sequel

Sledgehammer Games have future-proofed their incoming branch of the Call of Duty franchise it would seem, after key figures at the studio confirmed that the 'Advanced Warfare' setting had been made with a sequel in mind.

Speaking with GameInformer, company co-founder Glen Schofield confirmed: "There has to be some thinking of not ruining the story and everything or the world so you can't have another game. We're keeping it in a place where another game can exist."

In the same interview, Schofield, along with fellow co-founder Michael Condrey, explained how they're working to keep the future tech grounded in reality, and why they've been talking with Treyarch to ensure differentiation for a series that now has three developers working in three-year cycles.

Condrey explained: "I think Call of Duty resonates because it's believable and relatable. And it's always been one of the strengths of the franchise."

"Some of the the things we found through research of what's going on in the military today and around the world was more fantastic than even the things we were coming up with. And so I think that time period and that ability to keep it rooted means that our fans, ourselves - you know, it's not that fictional leap to a science fiction world you can't relate to."

That said, the 2054 setting is certainly going to give the studio some interesting future tech to work with, even if they're going to stay away from obvious sci-fi tropes: "Science fiction icons, we stayed away from," Schofield added. "So you won't see the traditional mech. Even though that may happen, people automatically go, ‘Sci-fi.' So, we're kind of trying to stay away from that."

Then Schofield mentioned the relationship between Sledgehammer and Treyarch (Black Ops) "We do talk with Mark Lamia [Treyarch studio head] and his designers and artists as much as possible, and that's so that we don't duplicate things.

"But I think we realized after the first six months or so when we had this huge amount of information and we had sort of a vision, that if we just kind of followed that and we used Sledgehammer's style, that we will be different.

"It's almost like two artists create a landscape and one's going to be so much different than the other and I think that there's enough differences between the two that - I know there's enough difference between the two that they both can exist."

We're expecting to see more of Advanced Warfare at E3 next month, but in the meantime, you can check out the Kevin Spacey trailer below (if you haven't already seen it).