In a recent interview with Minnmax, Bret Robbins, former Sr. Creative Director at Sledgehammer Games, spoke of two projects that were in the works there before his departure but never got to see the light of day, one of them being Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare 2.
The original Advanced Warfare, which was Sledgehammer's debut title, launched in 2014, and apparently, after the game's release, the team quickly got to work on its sequel. Robbins stated that they even had a demo and a prototype, but eventually, the tides shifted, the project was shelved, and Sledgehammer started development on what would eventually become 2017's Call of Duty: WWII.
"World War II had come back," said Robbins, "and it felt like a better opportunity." He admitted that there was some degree of executive pressure at Activision to shift gears into an older style of warfare, but, he explained that when it was taken to the team, many developers were interested in the idea of going back to that time period. "I'm glad we did [WWII]", Robbins stated, but he also feels "Advanced Warfare 2 would have been awesome."
Originally, Sledgehammer wasn't even going to work on a Call of Duty game, but instead on a third-person shooter adventure game, which Robbins described as "Uncharted meets Call of Duty." It was said to be "gritty" and "a more brutal third-person shooter experience," however, the team "didn't get that far with it."
When asked which of the two projects he would rather complete given the chance, Robbins chose Advanced Warfare 2 without much thought. "Advanced Warfare was ours," he explained. "I wrote that story. We came up with the whole world." Funnily enough, there were rumors late last year of Advanced Warfare 2 being in development at Sledgehammer, possibly slated to release in 2025, however, Insider Gaming refuted these claims a month later, stating that their sources said otherwise.
Robbins left Sledgehammer Games in 2018 to found Ascendant Studios, which is currently working on a fantasy FPS called Immortals of Aveum, revealed at last year's Game Awards. Immortals of Aveum was partly inspired by Call of Duty, as Robbins first came up with it when looking at a high-octane cinematic action set piece from COD. Robbins told MinnMax that the game is in its late stages of development, revealing that the team at Ascendant Studios is "[finalizing] it now."