Developer Infinity Ward has said that prepping the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of Call of Duty: Ghosts for release alongside their current-generation counterparts proved a ‘logistical nightmare.’
Mark Rubin, the game’s Executive Producer, told VideoGamer.com that developing the military FPS for multiple formats was a “brutal task,” and that throwing in a new engine, story and world into the mix was “maybe not the wisest choice.”
"It’s been a massive challenge for us," commented Rubin. "We’ve done a launch title before, but trying to do two launch titles and continue to do the current-gen and PC was a big logistical nightmare for us.
"We ended up having to really… we hired a lot more people for one, but we grew significantly. We’re actually about 150 people at the studio now and it used to be about 70-80. But as far as how [Ghosts] is going specifically, I think we’re in a really good spot. We’ve basically gone gold on everything. We’re working on a few additional patches for launch, but we’re in a good place.
"It was just a brutal task to get there. To have to not only do two new next-gen consoles, two old-gen consoles, PC and do a new engine and do new content based on a new story and a new world, and doing so much more new stuff, was maybe not the wisest choice, but it was definitely artistically what we wanted the choice to be."
Despite these issues, Rubin said that Infinity Ward was determined to pump out a next-generation version of its flagship shooter itself.
"We weren’t going to accept someone else doing current-gen or next-gen for us," he said. "We wanted to do both. We wanted to make sure that we were the ones who did it. We knew it was a lot of work – and it turned out to be a lot of work – but it was definitely what we wanted."
Call of Duty: Ghosts is out now on PS3, PC, Wii U and Xbox 360, with PS4 and Xbox One versions following later this month. Read our review of the game here.