Around 2008, Activision began actively courting pitches for a new COD instalment, planning to expand the series based on its increasing success at the time. One of those ideas was a very different take called Roman Wars, that would have followed a soldier in Julius Caesar’s Tenth Legion, technically the spec ops of its day.
As Polemos explains, the success of the series at this point prompted Activision to get experimental, wanting to expand the franchise and add another layer. “Anything that we put out that had Call of Duty [on], whatever we were sticking out, was selling really well, so [Activision] gave some studios an opportunity to test their their capabilities on the franchise, and whoever had the winning idea would get to take on the IP”.
“I really thought an ancient warfare game would do well, re-skinned with the Call of Duty engine,” says Polemos. “Basically we were following Julius Caesar’s Tenth Legion – his special forces during those times – and we were doing a one level prototype based on the Battle of Alesia. So we built the one mission based on that. We had everything from riding horses, to riding an elephant, to working with catapults. All done in the Unreal Engine for rapid prototyping”.
The second part of the prototype involved a smaller demonstration to showcase a different setting and the first-person view. “We showed a small a prototype of another battle that was going to happen in the Coliseum, sort of Gladiator style” Polemos clarifies. “It looked beautiful and it was just a quick preview of another mission, just to show the direction we were going to, and the art style”.
Judging by fellow gamers' posting preferences (mostly classic CODs and MW2019), I am of the opinion that this series needs a rebirth, would you have played an ancient COD? Where else would you take COD?