Over a decade ago, the gaming community was abuzz with anticipation for a Call of Duty installment titled ‘Future Warfare.’ This ambitious project was underway at Neversoft, a now largely forgotten studio that merged with Infinity Ward in 2014.
A recent Twitter post has unveiled a two-minute gameplay snippet from an early build of Future Warfare, shedding light on what could have been a groundbreaking addition to the franchise.
The shared footage showcases a player narrowly escaping an assault on the Moon, offering a glimpse into the intensity and futuristic setting of the game. Accompanying the visuals is a mission list, providing a loose overview of the narrative that Future Warfare intended to weave.
To provide context, developer Brian Bright stepped forward after the clip surfaced. He highlighted that the game, codenamed ‘NX1,’ was in development at Neversoft following a shift from their work on Guitar Hero.
Activision ultimately decided to cancel the project, but not before Neversoft had crafted some campaign missions and invested effort in refining the game’s multiplayer mechanics.
Interestingly, certain assets from Future Warfare found their way into the 2013 release of COD Ghosts. The gameplay snippet shared on Twitter dates back to 2011, serving as a glimpse into the forgotten potential of ‘Future Warfare.’
The unveiled clip showcases moments of intense gameplay within a lunar base under attack by an unidentified enemy.
The accompanying mission list hints at the expansive scope of the game’s envisioned narrative. Ironically, although Activision shelved Future Warfare, Infinity Ward later released a remarkably similar game, Infinite Warfare, in 2016.
Brian Bright’s comments revealed that Future Warfare was set to introduce the series’ first ‘Escort’ mode, a feature that was ultimately replaced by Call of Duty Ghosts despite considerable development efforts being invested in Future Warfare.
Additional insights emerged in the Twitter thread, including a multiplayer map list that featured ‘legacy’ remakes like Afghan, Crash, Outpost, Overgrown, Terminal, Whiteout, Apartment, Bin Laden’s Compound, and Gladiator Assault.
Neversoft’s attempt to pivot from the success of Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater to create a futuristic Call of Duty title faced obstacles and eventual failure. Between 2011 and their merger with Infinity Ward in 2014, Neversoft contributed to the development of three Call of Duty games before fading into relative obscurity.
Had Future Warfare seen the light of day, it would have marked the beginning of a spree of futuristic Call of Duty games, following the sequence of 2012’s Black Ops II, Future Warfare (2013), Advanced Warfare (2014), Black Ops III (2015), Infinite Warfare (2016), and concluding the futuristic era with WWII in 2017.
