Giant Bomb is reporting that Infinity Ward and Neversoft will be merging into a larger studio. The source of this news is said to be an internal communication that Giant Bomb obtained, and reported on early Saturday Morning. The new studio formed by this merger would retain the name Infinity Ward, and Steve Ackrich of the same studio will retain his leadership role. Also mentioned in the memo was that David Stohl, current VP of World Wide Studios for Activision has been assigned to this new studio. Former head of Neversoft, Joel Jewett, will be retiring from the company and the industry in general.
Neversoft is perhaps best know for its work on Tony Hawk Pro Skater. Neversoft and the Call of Duty developers have worked together in the past on some of Infinity Ward’s products such as last year’s Call of Duty: Ghosts. With the tepid reaction that Ghosts received, and the disappearance of Tony Hawk from the gaming landscape, it is possible that this is an effort to create a strong team from the best part of both teams in preparation for the next time that Infinity Ward is on rotation for the Call of Duty franchise.
As of this writing, only the information provided by Giant Bomb is available, and so nothing is official. We will continue to track the story.
You can read the full Giant Bomb article here.
