Cancelled Call of Duty spin-off was like zombies meets Mad Max

Former Raven Software lead designer Michael Gummelt has shared information on a cancelled Call of Duty zombie game, revealing how it would begin with players trapped in a Mad Max-style gladiatorial arena before escaping into an open-world setting.

Word of the spin-off first made rounds this past January, when Gummelt mentioned its existence on his LinkedIn profile (via MP1st). All he said about it was that it was in development from 2011 to 2012 and would’ve been an “ambitious” standalone live service title, but he’s since divulged a some more details as part of a recent interview with YouTuber Glitching Queen. Codenamed Project Zed, it was envisioned as a “fun, campy, experimental” game that would have expanded on the zombies formula while using the microtransaction model seen in the now defunct free-to-play Call of Duty Online.

Call of Duty‘s zombie offerings have typically been more tongue-in-cheek compared to the rest of the series, and Gummelt’s proposed project would’ve been no different. In the interview, he describes how it would’ve opened with your custom character being thrown into a “Mad Max kind of post-apocalyptic… zombie arena where you’d have to fight zombies as a gladiator.” Eventually, you would escape into an open world which you could explore and help clear out areas via wave-based encounters with zombies. Although Gummelt doesn’t give any examples, he adds how new themes would’ve been added each season, referencing some of the ideas used in other Zombies modes, like the Call of the Dead map which featured George Romero as an antagonist.

The project didn’t last for very long before it was cancelled, and Gummelt believes it was because Call of Duty: Black Ops developer Treyarch, the studio that introduced zombies to the Call of Duty series, wanted the IP back after lending it to Raven Software. “That was the impression that I got,” said Gummelt. “That, like, ‘Oh they are going to do Zombies again’ and don’t want that competing… you know, they’d be competing with each other then.”

While Gummelt says it’s unfortunate, he offers a positive spin on the situation, pointing out how this did lead to the Zombies modes seen in Black Ops 2, 3, and 4.

It is a shame Raven Software never got to spearhead its own Call of Duty project. To this day, it’s only ever served as a support studio on the series. While there’s likely an audience for a dedicated live-service Call of Duty zombie game, Activision has since found success with the free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone, so in a way Raven was slightly ahead of the curve. Treyarch has continued to work on the Zombies modes for Call of Duty games, though a recent report says it’s ended support for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 so it can focus on the next Black Ops entry.