Infinity Ward is the studio that created Call of Duty, and for much of the 2000s its games set the standard every other military shooter was measured against. Grant Collier, Jason West and Vince Zampella founded it in May 2002. The team came out of 2015, Inc., where all 22 original members had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for Electronic Arts. The founders were unhappy with their EA contract, so they signed a publishing agreement with Activision instead. Activision paid US$1.5 million for a 30% stake to fund the studio's first game. That game, Call of Duty, came out on PC in October 2003: a World War II shooter that put you in the middle of chaotic, squad-driven battles instead of a one-man war. The day after launch, Activision bought the rest of the roughly 25-person studio and signed its staff to long-term contracts. When Microsoft asked for a Call of Duty launch title for the Xbox 360, Infinity Ward tripled its headcount to about 75 so the console version of Call of Duty 2 would match the PC release. The game arrived in late 2005 with engine work focused on details that changed how firefights played out, such as smoke grenades that really block sight and bullets that punch through weak cover. It reached an 85% attach rate to new Xbox 360 sales and sold 1.4 million units in its first year, and Activision brought in Treyarch to alternate entries on Infinity Ward's engine. Then in 2007, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare took the series out of World War II and into a contemporary, fictional superpower conflict, with a studio of more than 100 people behind it. Its tightly scripted campaign and perk-driven multiplayer reshaped the genre, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 followed in 2009.
The studio's most turbulent chapter came right after its biggest success. Collier left to join Activision in early 2009. On March 1, 2010, Activision fired West and Zampella for "insubordination" after a contract dispute over bonuses and creative control. The pair founded Respawn Entertainment the next month, and several dozen Infinity Ward developers followed them over the months after that. New management was in place by November 2010, and the newly formed Sledgehammer Games joined as a third Call of Duty studio. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer then built Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 together, released in November 2011. It completed the original Modern Warfare trilogy and brought the story of Captain Price, Soap MacTavish and Vladimir Makarov that began in 2007 to its conclusion. Infinity Ward went on to make Call of Duty: Ghosts in 2013 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in 2016, and in 2019 it went back to its signature series with the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot and its sequel. Along the way, Neversoft, the studio behind Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, was merged into Infinity Ward on May 3, 2014. Today the studio is headquartered in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, with divisions in Poland, Mexico, Austin and Barcelona. It develops Call of Duty alongside Treyarch, Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. Its parent Activision became part of Microsoft Gaming when Microsoft completed its acquisition in October 2023. For players, the Infinity Ward catalog is where the modern Call of Duty formula was invented, and the Modern Warfare games are still the reference point for the series.
