Call Of Duty: Vanguard Sequel Reportedly Scrapped By Sledgehammer

It's been a busy week for the future of Call of Duty. With October's haunting clocks chiming the hours away on the countdown until Modern Warfare 2, rumours around future instalments of the franchise have run wild, including the future of Vanguard.

Recent news claims that Sledgehammer Games has reportedly been given the green light to begin developing Advanced Warfare 2, which is rumoured to be coming in 2025. This also indicates that Treyarch's 2024 Call of Duty title will only be given one year in rotation.

All of this contradicts earlier notions that it would be given the same two-year stint as Modern Warfare 2. Adding more interesting fuel to the fire, Advanced Warfare 2 wasn't Sledgehammer's first proposal. It was apparently a Call of Duty: Vanguard sequel that would've undoubtedly divided fans. 

Sledgehammer Reportedly Wanted A Vanguard Sequel

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According to the leaker Ralph Valve, Sledgehammer wanted to continue the Vanguard story through the existing characters and evolve the post-WWII experience. However, fans will be pleased to hear that any notions of Vanguard 2 have been immediately shut down.

The leaker detailed that Vanguard's performance dropped well below expectations and forced Sledgehammer to re-think their approach. This scrapped sequel then paved the way for the expected 2025 release that we're all told will be Advanced Warfare 2.

Activision Settle On Balanced Developer Cycles

It now appears that Activision has agreed to allow Treyarch to run the "past" conflicts, while allowing Infinity Ward to lead the charge on "modern" day warfare, and Sledgehammer to control the futuristic titles.  However, Sledgehammer will now have to scrap the story arcs of its Vanguard characters like Wade Jackson and Arthur Kingsley, which failed to make any impact.

Instead, we could see the return of Jack Mitchell and Gideon, the latter of whom was quite a well-liked character. It's highly unlikely that Johnathan Irons will be seen again though, and will face a similar fate as Vanguard's characters, given that he was portrayed by Kevin Spacey. For CoD fans though, it was either destructible windows in mud and dirt or Exo suits in bright sci-fi action. Pick your champion...