Titanfall 2 developer Respawn was founded by two former Infinity Ward developers, and now it seems Respawn team members have headed back to Infinity Ward.
An exhaustively-sourced Reddit post lists eight developers who have recently left Respawn and, in some cases, returned to Infinity Ward. They include lead game designer Geoffrey Smith, senior game designer John Mundy, and art lead Joel Emslie.
Geoffrey Smith was a designer at Infinity Ward prior to joining Respawn, and Mark Grigsby, who has also recently returned to Infinity Ward, had been an art lead there prior to becoming an art director at Respawn.
Respawn created Titanfall 2, which is on our list of the best first-person shooters on the PC.
It was former Infinity Ward bosses Vince Zampella and Jason West who founded Respawn after Activision fired them in 2010 for “insubordination,” making these Respawn defections to Infinity Ward potentially fraught, both politically and personally. Zampella and West had worked with Activision to create Call of Duty at Infinity Ward.
You can read the full Reddit post here.
Respawn was acquired by EA last year in a deal worth more than $400 million USD, and the publishers have said they are committed to the Titanfall franchise, Respawn’s excellent first-person shooter series.
However, Zampella never seemed certain of a third Titanfall game, and Respawn studio talent departing for Infinity Ward could be a dire sign for the future of the franchise. Despite the fact that Titanfall 2 had one of the best single-player shooter campaigns in recent memory, launching it between Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1 hurt initial sales and the game languished commercially.
We’ll update this story when we learn more.